N 


THE   QUEST 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO  •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONOON  •    BOMBAY   •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


THE    QUEST 


BY 


JOHN   G.    NEIHARDT 

AUTHOR   OF 
"THE   SONG  OF   HUGH  GLASS" 


Nefo  go* 

THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1916 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1907,  1909,  AND  1912, 
BY  JOHN  G.   NEIHARDT. 

COPYRIGHT,  1916, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  October,  1916. 


NorfoooU 

J.  S.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


To 

THE    WOMEN    OF    MY    FAMILY 

"MIGHTY  GIVERS,  MEAGRE  TAKERS, 
MOTHER,  SISTER,  WIFE." 


357992 


NOTE 

IN  selecting  the  material  for  this  volume,  chiefly  from 
my  three  former  collections  of  lyrics,  A  Bundle  of  Myrrh 
(1907),  Man-Song  (1909),  and  The  Stranger  at  the 
Gate  (1912),  it  has  been  my  intention  to  include  only 
those  poems  which,  having  been  read  widely,  have  won 
approval. 

The  careful  reader  will  doubtless  note  that  the  present 
arrangement  of  the  poems  is  not  arbitrary,  having  been 
determined  in  accordance  with  the  succession  of  attitudes 
toward  life  incident  to  growth  out  of  the  erotic  period 
into  manhood.  Such  a  reader,  therefore,  will  not  pass 
judgment  on  the  whole  book  according  as  his  temperament 
and  individual  experience  have  prepared  him  to  like  or 
dislike  any  isolated  section ;  rather,  he  will  be  likely  to 
appraise  the  volume  as  an  organic  thing. 

I  have  retained  all  but  five  poems  of  A  Bundle  of  Myrrh. 
That  sequence  seems  to  have  become  fixed  in  the  con 
sciousness  of  many,  and  its  continuous  appeal  would  seem 
to  testify  to  its  veracity  as  one  record  of  a  common  human 
experience.  That  cycle  and  the  subsequent  group  of 


viii  NOTE 

poems  ending  with  "Nuptial  Song"  cover  the  erotic 
period,  the  desires  of  which  are  justified  in  the  normal 
experience  of  parenthood  celebrated  in  the  next  sequence, 
The  Stranger  at  the  Gate.  Thereupon  follow  poems 
variously  concerned  with  one  man's  attitude  toward  his 
art,  his  fellow  men,  and  Nature,  together  with  some  of 
his  hopes  and  guesses  concerning  his  probable  relation  to 
the  cosmos. 

A  number  of  poems  not  hitherto  collected  are  included 

in  this  volume. 

J.  G.  N. 
1916. 


CONTENTS 

A   BUNDLE   OF   MYRRH 

PAGE 

LINES  IN  LATE  MARCH 5 

THE  WITLESS  MUSICIAN 7 

THE  SOUND  MY  SPIRIT  CALLS  You    ....  9 

AT  PARTING .        .12 

LONGING .        .        .14 

SHOULD  WE  FORGET 16 

COME  BACK 17 

IN  AUTUMN .        .18 

THE  SUBTLE  SPIRIT 30 

CHASER  OF  DIM  VAST  FIGURES 21 

THE  TEMPLE  OF  THE  GREAT  OUTDOORS      ...  24 

WHEN  I  AM  DEAD 27 

IN  DEJECTION 28 

A  FANCY 30 

RETROSPECT 31 

RECOGNITION 33 

CONFESSION 35 

WEARY 36 

IF  THIS  BE  SIN 37 

ix 


x  CONTENTS 

FACE 

LET  DOWN  YOUR  HAIR .39 

THE  LYRIC  NIGHT         ..••»..      41 

TITAN-WOMAN        .        .        .  . 43 

THE  MORNING  GIRL 45 

THE  CITY  OF  DUST 47 

THE  FOOL'S  MOTHER     .  .       .        .        .        .47 

LET  ME  LIVE  OUT  MY  YEARS     .        .        .        .       .      50 

PRAYER  OF  AN  ALIEN  SOUL         .        .        .        .        .51 

THE  ANCIENT  STORY 54 

THE  LAST  ALTAR 56 

RESURRECTION 58 

A   VISION   OF   WOMAN 

A  VISION  OF  WOMAN 63 

WOMAN-WINE 72 

EROS        ....        .        .        .       ...        .75 

G;EA,  MOTHER  GJEA  ! .77 

NUPTIAL-SONG       .  .        .        .        .       .        .81 

THE   STRANGER  AT  THE  GATE 

THE  WEAVERS  ,       •        •       ....".  .87 

THE  STORY     .  ,       .       .       .       .       .  .  .90 

THE  NEWS      .  .        .       ...       .       .  .  .94 

IN  THE  NIGHT  ....       .       •       •  •  .      96 

BREAK  OF  DAY  .        .       .               .       .  .  .      99 

SONG  TO  THE  SUN         •        .      ,.        .        •  .  .     102 

END  OF  SUMMER •  .    104 


CONTENTS  xi 

PAGE 

HYMN  BEFORE  BIRTH   .        .       .       .....    106 

TRIUMPH • 

THE  CHILD'S  HERITAGE HI 


THE   POET'S   TOWN 

THE  POET'S  TOWN 117 

THE  POET'S  ADVICE 126 

HARK  THE  Music 129 

APRIL  THE  MAIDEN 13° 

APRIL  THEOLOGY 131 

MORNING-GLORIES 134 

INVITATIONS -^ 

AND  THE  LITTLE  WIND— I38 

PRAIRIE  STORM  RUNE I41 

PRAYER  FOR  PAIN 146 

BATTLE-CRY 148 

THE  LYRIC 150 

LONESOME  IN  TOWN      .        .        •                •        •        •  151 

MONEY 153 

SONG  OF  THE  TURBINE  WHEEL 154 

THE  RED  WIND  COMES!       ...*••  156 

CRY  OF  THE  PEOPLE I59 

O  LYRIC  MASTER! I61 

KATHARSIS 163 

THE  FARMER'S  THANKSGIVING  (1914)  .        .        .        .165 

THE  VOICE  OF  NEMESIS I67 

ECHO  SONG            17° 


xii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

FOUNTAIN  SONG     .  .        .  .       .       .    172 

OUTWARD 173 

THE  GHOSTLY  BROTHER 175 

WHEN  I  HAVE  GONE  WEIRD  WAYS    .        .        .       .179 
ENVOI     ......  181 


A  BUNDLE  OF  MYRRH 
A  SEQUENCE  OF  SONGS  AND  CHANTS 


Who  is  she  that  looketh  forth  as  the  morning. 

Fair  as  the  moon, 

Clear  as  the  sun, 

And  terrible  as  an  army  with  banners?" 


PRELUDE 

/  would  sing  as  the  Wind ; 

As  the  autumn  Wind,  big  with  rain  and  sad  with  pre 
natal  dread. 

I  would  sing  as  the  Storm  ; 
As  the  Storm  whipped  by  the  lightning  and  strong  with 

giant  despair. 
I  would  sing  as  the  Snow  ; 
Wailing  and  hissing  and  writhing  in  the  merciless  grasp 

of  the  Blizzard. 
I  would  sing  as  the  Prairie  ; 
As  the  Prairie  droning  in  the  heat,  satisfied,  drowsy  and 

mystical. 

For  I  am  a  part  of  the  Prairie, 
Kin  to  the  Wind  and  the  Lightning. 
I  love  as  the  Prairie  might  love; 
As  the  Storm  would  hate,  I  hate. 
I  feel  the  despair  of  the  Storm, 
Rejoice  with  the  joy  of  the  River. 
Even  as  these  would  sing  in  their  differing  moods,  I  sing  ! 


THE  QUEST 

A  BUNDLE  OF  MYRRH 

I 
LINES  IN  LATE  MARCH 

I  WHISTLE  ;   why  not  ? 

Have  I  not  seen  the  first  strips  of  green  winding 

up  the  sloughs  ? 

Have  I  not  heard  the  meadow-lark  ? 
I  have  looked  into  soft  blue  skies  and  have  been 

uplifted ! 

Where  are  the  doubts  and  the  dark  ideas  I  enter 
tained  ? 

What  have  I  caught  from  the  maple-buds  that 
changes  me  ? 

Or  was  it  the  meadow-lark  —  or  the  blue  sky — 
or  the  strips  of  green  ? 

The  green  that  winds  up  the  sloughs  ? 

I  sought  the  dark  and  found  much  of  it. 
Is  there  in  truth  much  darkness  ? 
5 


6  THE  QUEST 

Have  the  meadow-larks  lied  to  me  ? 
Have  the  green  grass  and  the  blue  sky  testified 
falsely  ? 

I  want  to  trust  the  sky  and  the  grass ! 
I  want  to  believe  the  songs  I  hear  from  the  fence- 
posts  ! 
Why  should  a  maple-bud  mislead  me? 


II 

THE  WITLESS  MUSICIAN 

SHE  is  my  violin  ! 

As  the  violinist  lays  his  ear  to  his  instrument 

That  he  may  catch  the  low  vibrations  of  the 

deeper  strings, 

So  I  lay  my  ear  to  her  breast. 
I  hear  her  blood  singing  and  I  am  shaken  with 

ecstasy ; 
For  am  I  not  the  musician  ? 

She  is  my  harp  —  I  play  upon  her. 

I  touch  her,  and  she  trembles  as  a  harp  with  the 

first  chord  of  a  revery. 
I  lay  my  hands  upon  her  with  that  divine  thrill 

in  my  finger-tips, 

That  reverent  nervousness  of  the  fingers, 
Which   a   harpist   feels   when   he   reaches   for   a 

ravishing  chord, 
Elusive    chord    from    among    the    labyrinthine 

strings. 

7 


8  THE  QUEST 

I  am  a  musician  for  the  first  time ! 

I  have  found  an  instrument  to  play  upon ! 

She  is  my  violin  —  she  is  my  harp ! 

A  song  slept  in  her  blood. 

None  had  found  it  —  and  it  slept. 

Lo  !  I  —  even  I  who  am  so  poor  in  power, 

Who  was  a  pauper  in  conception  of  harmony, 

I  have  awakened  by  chance  the  slumbering  song ! 

I  am  lost  in  the  spaciousness  of  it; 
I  am  only   a   part  of  the   song  which   I   have 
awakened  mysteriously. 

Lo,  I,  the  witless  musician  ! 

I  have  wrought  even  as  Masters  of  Melody, 

Even  as  Masters  of  Song ! 


Ill 

THE  SOUND  MY  SPIRIT  CALLS  YOU 

I  WOULD  I  knew  some  slow  soft  sound  to  call  you : 
Some  slow  soft  syllable  that  should  linger  on  the 

UP 

As  loath  to  pass,  because  of  its  own  sweetness. 

I  cannot  shape  the  sound  —  tho'  I  have  heard  it ; 
Heard  it  in  the  night-wind  and  the  rush  of  the 

rain ! 

Heard  it  in  the  dull  monotony  of  the  dozing  noon ! 
Heard   it  among  the  leaves  when  Winds    were 

fagged  at  nightfall ! 

Kind  as  the  shade,  this  sound : 
Kind  as  the  dull  blue  shade  that  blade-like  cuts 
A  kingdom  of  coolness  from  the  cruel  Noon : 
Soft  as  the  kiss  of  the  Stream  to  the  drooping 

Leaf; 
Sad  as  the  pale  Sun's  smile  over  the  Blizzard's 

bier; 

9 


io  THE  QUEST 

Deep  and  resonant  as  distant  thunder  after  a  day 

of  heat ; 
Mystic  as  the  dream  of  the  illimitable  Prairie 

under  the  August  glare; 
Mysterious  as  the  blue  haze  in  which  the  turbid 

River  dwindles  to  a  creek ! 

I  cannot  speak  the  language  of  the  Hills. 

I  am  unskilled  to  sing  the  notes  of  the  June  South- 
wind. 

The  Noon  croons  not  with  such  a  tongue  as  mine. 

Yet  —  even  tho'  I  be  dead,  this  sound  shall  call 
you  for  me ! 

In  the  still  blue  nights  —  listen !  and  you  shall 
hear  it ! 

In  the  burst  of  the  storm  it  shall  be  as  a  whisper 
to  you ! 

The  Morning  shall  sing  it  for  you  and  the  Sunset 
paint  its  meaning, 

Even  upon  a  background  of  burning  gold,  and 
from  the  palette  of  the  Rainbow ! 

I  would  that  my  tongue  could  shape  this  sound 

my  spirit  calls  you. 

It  would  be  as  a  rose-leaf  becoming  vocal ; 
As  a  honeycomb  talking  of  sweetness ! 


THE  SOUND  MY  SPIRIT  CALLS  YOU    11 

And  it  would  pass  slowly  and  gloriously  as  a  sunset 

passes; 

Gloriously  and  lingeringly  it  would  die  away, 
Leaving  upon  my  strangely  nervous  lips 
The  faint  suggestion  of  a  fragrance. 


IV 

AT  PARTING 

No  more  from  light  to  light,  from  gloom  to  gloom, 
Shall  you  grow  up  about  me,  making  bloom 
Each  individual  moment  like  a  rose. 
From  morning  to  the  quiet  evening's  close, 
From  dusk  unto  the  coming  of  the  sun, 
I  feel  the  hours  grow  empty  one  by  one. 

And  yet  in  spite  of  our  diverging  ways, 
You  have  a  place  in  all  my  nights  and  days. 
The  lonely  dusk,  enchanted  by  the  moon, 
Shall  sing  you  to  me  with  a  quiet  tune. 
When  skies  grow  soft  and  blue  in  after  days, 
Then  shall  I  feel  your  pure,  calm,  searching  gaze. 
And  ever  when  the  Green  World  wakes  in  dew, 
It  shall  be  fragrant  with  the  soul  of  you. 

So  Night  shall  be  my  servant,  and  the  Day 
Shall  conjure  back  that  which  has  passed  away; 

12 


AT  PARTING  13 

That  ever  luring  and  elusive  thing  — 
A  song  that  I  conceived,  but  could  not  sing ; 
A  dream  I  dreamed,  but  waking  could  not  live; 
Sweet  wine  for  which  my  goblet  was  a  sieve ! 


V 

LONGING 

OH  hold  no  more  the  prize  of  wealth  before  me, 
Nor  hope  of  praise ; 

Nor  talk  of  things  men  toil  for,  to  deplore  me 
My  dream-filled  days ! 

Give  me  a  fastness  distant  from  the  city, 
The  human  sea 

Which  I  would  hate,  were  not  I  forced  to  pity, 
Because  akin  to  me. 

There  in  the  wilds  with  only  you  to  love  me 
And  none  to  hate, 

1  could  feel  Something  good  and  strong  above  me, 
More  kind  than  Fate. 

The  Wind  would  take  my  hand  and  lead  me  kindly 
Through  the  wild ; 

And  teach  me  to  believe  in  beauty  blindly, 
Like  a  child. 

I  could  forget  the  aches  of  hope  and  failing, 
That  with  slow  fires  consume 
This  fevered  flesh  that  goes  on  groping,  wailing 
Toward  the  gloom. 

14 


LONGING 

Far  from  the  bitter  grin  of  human  faces 

I  could  sing : 

Robed  in  the  vast  and  lonesome  purple  spaces 

Like  a  king. 


VI 

SHOULD  WE  FORGET 

I  WONDER  if  the  skies  would  be  so  blue, 
Or  grass  so  kindly  green  as  'twas  of  old, 
Or  would  there  be  such  freshness  in  the  dew 
When  purple  mornings  blossom  into  gold : 
I  wonder  would  the  sudden  song  of  birds, 
Thrilling  the  storm-hushed  forest  dripping  wet 
After  a  June  shower,  be  as  idle  words, 
Should  we  forget. 

I  wonder  if  we'd  feel  the  charm  of  night 
Divinely  lonesome  with  the  changing  moons ; 
Or  would  we  prize  the  intermittent  light 
Burning  the  zenith  with  its  transient  noons. 
I  wonder  if  the  twilight  could  avail 
To  charm  us,  as  of  old  when  suns  had  set, 
If  all  these  many  dream-sweet  days  should  fail 
And  we  forget. 


16 


VII 
COME  BACK 

COME  back  and  bring  the  summer  in  your  eyes, 
The  peace  of  evening  in  your  quiet  ways ; 
Come  back  and  lead  again  to  Paradise 
The  errant  days ! 

Of  old  I  saw  the  sunlight  on  the  corn, 
The  wind-blown  ripple  running  on  the  wheat ; 
But  now  the  ways  are  shabby  and  forlorn 
That  knew  your  feet. 

Forget  the  words  meant  only  by  my  lips ! 
Could  you  not  understand 
The  language  of  my  fevered  finger-tips 
When  last  you  took  my  hand  ? 


17 


VIII 
IN  AUTUMN 

DREAR,  dull  autumnal  rain, 

Skies  washed  to  gray ; 

Winds  sighing  like  an  unfleshed  ancient  pain; 

Uncanny  day ! 

A  time  for  tears  and  musings  on  the  past, 
For  vain  regret ; 

A  time  to  dream  of  joys  that  could  not  last 
But  mock  us  yet. 

A  time  to  dream  of  winter  and  to  mourn ; 
To  hear  sad  tunes ; 

To  yearn  unto  the  far  and  shadowed  bourne 
Of  perished  Junes. 

Yet  not  for  me  this  drear  autumnal  mood, 
This  winter  fear; 

I  view  from  no  dull  mental  solitude 
The  aging  year. 

For  me  —  the  memory  of  sun-shot  days, 
Nights  kind  and  warm ; 

Moons  purpling  the  weird  star-enchanted  haze; 
The  April  storm. 

18 


IN  AUTUMN  19 

The  rain's  drone  on  the  roof,  the  wind's  lament 
Among  the  trees ; 

These  make  me  hear  through  days  of  warm  con 
tent 
The  hum  of  bees. 

Because  I  see  with  eyes  that  saw  your  face 

As  none  had  seen ; 

And  hear  with  ears  that  heard  you  —  every  place 

Is  summer-green. 

And  I  shall  hear  the  robin  through  the  fall 
And  in  the  snow; 

Because  you  live  and  breathe  and  love  in  all, 
Where'er  I  go. 


IX 

THE  SUBTLE  SPIRIT 

I  BUILT  a  temple  for  my  spirit's  home; 

I  filled  it  with  myself  —  and  it  was  fair. 

From   its  dream-pavement  to  its  dream-reared 

dome 

No  spirit  but  my  own  existed  there. 
About  the  walls  I  wrought  with  doting  care 
Huge  fancies  alien  to  the  world  of  men, 
Vague  daubs  and  vast  of  youth  and  light  and  air. 
Sublimely  isolated  in  my  spirit's  den, 
I  lived  and  toiled  and  dreamed,  and  hoped  —  and 

then  —  and  then  — 

Another  spirit  entered,  subtle,  slow, 

Like  summiT  coming  when  the  winter  flees, 

With  eyes  that  had  the  soft,  warm,  quiet  glow 

Of  some  calm  evening  of  a  day  of  ease : 

And  that  was  you !  I  felt,  upon  my  knees, 

A  swift,  mysterious  spreading  of  the  place ! 

My  poor  walls  seemed  to  hold  infinities 

Too  vast  for  peace !     I  fell  upon  my  face 

And  worshipped  you  at  last,  the  spirit  of  the 

place  1 

20 


CHASER  OF  DIM  VAST  FIGURES 

CHASER  of  dim  vast  figures  in  the  mist, 
Drawn  by  far  cries,  an  alien  to  content, 
Builder  of  burning  worlds  that  passed  in  gloom, 
Vain  architect  of  great  sky-spaces,  filled 
With  unreal  suns  uncurtaining  the  day 
That  fell  again  in  dismal  night  —  'Twas  I ! 

A  pygmy  in  all  else  but  daring  dreams, 
A  grasper  after  monstrous  shadow-shapes, 
With  stars  for  eyes  and  mass  of  cloud  for  cloak 
And  dreams  for  blood  and  winds  of  night  for  voice ; 
I  sought,  they  fled ;   and  wailing  after  —  I ! 

And  wailing  after  —  I :  for  somewhere  lurked 
The  awful  form  of  Beauty  Absolute ; 
A  pagan  goddess,  vast  of  limb  and  thigh, 
With  burning  hills  for  breasts,  and  for  a  face 
Dim  features  dazzled  with  an  inward  sun ; 
A  form  of  classic  curves,  voluptuous  slope 
Of  neck  and  shoulders  downward  to  the  breasts ; 
Arms  warm  and  languid  as  the  soul  of  Love 
And  scintillant  as  rockets  of  the  dawn ! 

21 


22  THE  QUEST 

And  at  her  feet  I  dreamed  to  lay  my  head, 
A  pygmy  worshipper,  who  could  not  reach 
Unto  the  ankles  mountain-high,  where  blazed 
Circles  of  jewels  like  chained  satellites, 
To  touch  which  with  my  finger-tips  were  death ! 

And  I  would  guess  sweet  guesses  —  how  her  hair 
Made  sunlight  upward  where  my  eyes  saw  not; 
How  sweet  the  thunder  of  her  beating  heart 
And  terrible !     I  sought  and  found  her  not. 

Yet  everywhere  I  saw  her  with  my  soul : 
Saw  her  in  girlhood,  strolling  with  the  Spring; 
And  in  the  sultry  summer  sunsets  saw 
The  glory  of  her  searching  woman-eyes, 
That  made  me  sing  strange  songs  of  sweet  despair. 
And  I  have  watched  her  hair  trail  down  in  flame 
The  vapor  plains  and  mountains  of  the  West ! 
Thus  loving  what  was  not,  the  dreamer  —  I ! 

And  as  I  reached  my  eager  arms  to  clasp 
The  prodigy  that  fled  —  you  filled  them  full, 
And  in  my  hair  I  felt  your  fingers  move, 
And  felt  your  woman's  lips  about  my  face, 
And  felt  your  cool  cheek  on  my  fevered  cheek. 
So  I  have  lost  the  wish  to  dream  again. 


XI 

THE  TEMPLE  OF  THE  GREAT  OUT 
DOORS 

Lo  !   I  am  the  builder  of  a  temple  ! 
Even  I,  who  groped  so  long  for  God 
And  laughed  the  cackling  laugh  to  find  the  dark 
ness  empty, 
I  am  the  builder  of  a  temple ! 

The  toiling  shoulders  of  my  dream  heaved  up  the 

arch 

And  set  the  pillars  of  the  Dawn, 
The  burning  pillars  of  the  Evening  and  the  Dawn, 
Under  the  star-sprent,  sun-shot,  moon-enchanted 

dome  of  blue ! 

And  I,  who  knew  no  God, 
Stood  straight,  unhumbled  in  my  temple : 
I  did  not  fear  the  subtle  Mystery  of  the  Darkness, 
And  I  was  only  glad  to  feel  the  miraculous  rush  of 
sunlight  in  my  blood  ! 

I  did  not  bend  the  knee. 

I  was  unafraid,  unashamed,  careless  and  defiant. 
23 


24  THE  QUEST 

I  was  a  laughing  Ego  that  felt  within  itself  the 

thrill  of  potential  godhood  : 
I  stood  as  in  the  centre  of  the  Universe  and 

laughed ! 

And  in  my  temple  there  were  songs  and  organ 

tones, 
And  there  was  a  silent  Something  holier  than 

prayer. 
I  heard  the  winds  and  the  streams  and  the  sounds 

of  many  birds : 
I  heard  the  shouting  of  storms  and  the  moaning  of 

snows ; 

I  heard  my  heart,  and  it  was  lifted  up  in  song. 
The  Wind  passing  in  a  gust  was  as  though  an  organ 

had  been  stricken  by  the  hands  of  a  capricious 

Master ! 

There  was  movement  in  the  air,  motion  in  the 
leaves,  a  stirring  in  the  grass, 

Even  as  of  the  reverent  moving  about  of  a  congre 
gation. 

Yet  I  stood  alone  in  my  temple ;  I  stood  alone  and 
was  not  afraid. 

But  once  a  Something  glided  into  my  temple 
And  I  became  afraid  ! 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  THE  GREAT  OUTDOORS  25 

As  the  Moon-Woman  of  the  Greeks  the  Some 
thing  seemed, 

Lithe  and  swift  and  pale, 

A  fitting  human  sheath  for  the  keen  chaste  spirit 
of  a  sword ! 

And  then  it  seemed  my  temple  was  too  small. 

The  Presence  filled  it  to  the  furthest  nook ! 

There  was  no  lonesomeness  in  any  cranny ! 

I  knelt  —  and  was  afraid  ! 

I  felt  the  Presence  in  the  winds ; 
I  heard  it  in  the  streams ; 
I  saw  it  in  the  restless  changing  of  the  clouds ! 
I  tried  to  be  as  I  had  been,  unbending,  not  afraid 
—  godless. 

Subtle  as  the  scent  of  the  unseen  swinging  censer 

of  the  wild  flowers 
That  Presence  crept  upon  me ! 

I  fled  from  the  terrible  sunlight  that  burned  the 

dome  of  my  temple  ! 

Childlike  I  hid  my  head  in  the  darkness ! 
But  I  am  not  alone. 

Where  I  have  laughed  defiantly  into  the  blind 
emptiness, 

Something  moves! 


26  THE  QUEST 

I  have  placed  my  irreverent  hand  upon  a  Some 
thing  in  the  Shadow ! 

I  tremble  lest  the  Thing  shall  illumine  itself  as  the 
Dawn; 

I  tremble  lest  at  last  I  must  see  God  — 

See  God  and  laugh  no  more. 


XII 
WHEN  I  AM  DEAD 

WHEN  I  am  dead,  and  nervous  hands  have  thrust 

My  body  downward  into  careless  dust ; 

I  think  the  grave  cannot  suffice  to  hold 

My  spirit  'prisoned  in  the  sunless  mould ! 

Some  subtle  memory  of  you  shall  be 

A  resurrection  of  the  life  of  me. 

Yea,  I  shall  be,  because  I  love  you  so, 

The  speechless  spirit  of  all  things  that  grow. 

You  shall  not  touch  a  flower  but  it  shall  be 

Like  a  caress  upon  the  cheek  of  me. 

I  shall  be  patient  in  the  common  grass 

That  I  may  feel  your  footfall  when  you  pass. 

I  shall  be  kind  as  rain  and  pure  as  dew, 

A  loving  spirit  'round  the  life  of  you. 

When  your   soft   cheeks    by  odorous   winds    are 

fanned, 

'Twill  be  my  kiss  —  and  you  will  understand. 
But  when   some  sultry,   storm-bleared   sun   has 

set, 

/  will  be  lightning  if  you  dare  forget! 
27 


XIII 
IN  DEJECTION 

THIS  thing  I  hold  so  closely  in  my  arms, 
Feeling  its  heart  leap  strongly  at  my  kiss, 
Its  eyes  closed  gently  like  two  cloud-veiled  stars, 
Its  breath  like  some  soft  night  wind  on  my  neck ; 
What  is  it  ?    This  soft  thing  I  hold  so  closely  ? 

Ah,  head,  like  some  pale  flower  asleep  in  shade, 
Ah,  breast,  at  which  my  passionate  hands  have 

thrilled, 

O  languid  arms  and  white  hands  veined  with  blue, 
A  little  while  and  these  may  be  a  lump 
To  make  me  shudder  with  a  dismal  dread ! 

O  precious  Thing  of  Flesh ! 
Let  me  exhaust  the  softness  of  your  cheek 
With  one  long  desperate  kiss,  as  one  who  drinks 
The  final  maddening  drop  before  the  cup 
Be  shattered  into  dust !     O  let  me  breathe 
Your  breath  that  I  have  made  more  quick  and 
warm, 

28 


IN  DEJECTION  29 

As  one  who  drowns  and  takes  the  latest  gasp  ! 
The  time  may  come  when  my  fond  touch  shall  fail 
To  cause  your  sigh,  and  my  hot  kiss  be  vain 
To  make  your  blue-veined  temples  throb  as  now. 

I  see  your  sunken  eyes,  your  rose-like  cheek 
Burned  black  with  agony !    And  I  shall  be 
So  jealous  of  the  ground  that  shall  embrace  you, 
So  jealous  of  the  grass  that  grows  above  you, 
So  jealous  of  the  silence  that  enfolds  you. 


XIV 
A  FANCY 

IF  I  should  die,  and  some  strong  Voice  should  say, 
Unto  my  soul  lost  in  the  vast  black  deep, 
"Where  wouldst  thou  take,  O  Soul,  thy  future 

way, 

Wouldst  still  live  on  in  pain,  or  fall  asleep  ?" 
It  seems  that  I  would  answer :  Let  me  creep 
Into  the  roots  of  some  rose  she  loves  well ; 
Grow  upward  with  the  sap  of  June  and  steep 
The  petals  with  this  love  I  cannot  tell ; 
Breathe  out  these  dreams  in  perfume  that  could 

speak 

My  longings  for  her,  for  which  words  are  weak ! 
Thus  grow  one  swift,  soft  summer  day,  then  feel 
The  pang  of  plucking  through  my  fibres  reel ! 
I  would  not  then  go  wailing  after  light ; 
I  would  not  feel  the  terror  of  the  night ; 
I  would  not  weary  of  the  endless  rush 
Of  mad  blind  cycles  through  the  awful  hush ! 


30 


XV 
RETROSPECT 

WHEN  first  I  looked  upon  your  face 

It  seemed  to  me  it  was  not  new; 

It  seemed  from  some  far-distant  place 

I  but  remembered  you  : 

For  some  sweet  subtle  feeling  told 

That  we  two  once  had  loved  of  old. 

The  clear-cut  curve  of  lip  and  chin, 
The  low  fond  voice,  the  gentle  way ; 
By  these  I  knew  that  we  had  been 
Fond  lovers  in  our  day : 
It  seemed  I  heard  you  singing  still 
To  me  by  some  Thessalian  rill ! 

Perhaps  I  was  a  shepherd  lad 

And  you  a  shepherd  maid ; 

And  oh  !  what  kisses  sweet  we  had 

The  while  our  two  flocks  strayed  — 

Strayed  off  with  distant  bleat  and  bell 

Along  some  green  Achaean  dell. 

Perhaps  I  was  a  bard  and  wrought 
Some  golden  martial  story, 


32  THE  QUEST 

How  Helen  loved,  how  Hector  fought, 
My  harp  a-thrili  with  glory : 
Again  you  bring  those  mystic  years, 
I  hear  your  praise,  I  feel  your  tears. 

The  golden  God  sat  in  my  shell 

And  Venus  breathed  in  you ; 

Did  I  not  sing  both  wild  and  well  ? 

Did  I  not  warmly  woo  ? 

Perhaps  we  swooned  to  some  sweet  wrong 

That  thrilled  us  like  a  battle  song ! 

O  let  us  take  the  ancient  way, 
The  way  we  knew  of  old 
Ere  Time  flew  o'er  and  made  us  gray, 
Ere  Death  had  made  us  cold : 
Again  the  old  sweet  way  begin  !  — 
How  can  it  lead  us  into  sin  ?   * 


XVI 
RECOGNITION 

WHAT  far-hurled  cry  is  this  —  what  subtle  shout 
That  drives  the  winter  of  my  spirit  out 
With  trumpets  and  the  cymballed  joy  of  spring  ? 
No  more  am  I  the  shivering  beggared  thing 
That  dreamed  of  summer  in  a  bed  of  snow ! 
Hark  how  the  scarlet  trumpets  madly  blow 
A  glad,  delirious  riot  of  sweet  sound  ! 

0  I  have  found 

At  last  the  one  I  lost  so  long  ago 
In  Thessaly,  where  Peneus'  waters  flow ! 
For  thou  wert  Lais,  and  of  yore  'twas  thus 
That  thou  didst  speak  to  me  —  Hippolochus ! 
And  I  have  not  forgot. 

Still  dreaming  of  the  old  impassioned  spot, 

1  passed  through  many  pangful  births  in  Time, 
Weaving  in  many  tongues  the  aching  rhyme 
That  groped  about  and  cried  for  thee  in  vain ! 
Of  many  deaths  I  passed  the  gates  of  pain ; 
And  down  to  many  hells  the  bitter  ways 

D  33 


34  THE  QUEST 

I  trod,  still  seeking  for  the  ancient  days. 
Through  many  lands  in  many  women's  eyes 
I  longed  to  overtake  thee  with  surprise. 

O  the  long  ages  that  I  sought  for  thee! 
Hast  thou  kept  pure  the  ancient  drink  for  me  ? 
Who  touched  with  careless  lips  my  goblet's  brim, 
Daring  to  dream  the  vintage  was  for  him  ? 
Half  jealous  of  those  lips  of  dust  am  I ! 

O  let  us  journey  back  to  Thessaly, 
And  from  faint  echoes  build  the  olden  song ! 
Hast  thou  forgotten,  through  these  ages  long, 
The  tinkle  of  the  sheep-bells  and  the  shrill 
Glad  oaten  reeds  of  shepherds  on  the  hill  ? 
Our  days  of  sultry  passion  and  the  nights 
That  flashed  the  dizzy  lightning  of  delights  ? 

At  last  I  feel  again  thy  finger-tips ! 

Be  as  a  purple  grape  upon  my  lips, 

Made  sweet  with  dew  of  dreams,  and  wholly  mine  ! 

O  let  me  drink  the  sweet  forbidden  wine 

Crushed  out  with  bruising  kisses  !     Death  is  near, 

And  I  shall  lose  thee  once  again,  my  dear ! 

The  dust  of  ages  chokes  me  !     Quick  !     The  wine  ! 
Lift  up  the  goblet  of  thy  lips  to  mine ! 

The  bony  Terror  !     Hark  his  muffled  drums  !  — 
Let  us  be  drunken  when  the  Victor  comes  I 


XVII 
CONFESSION 

MY  love  is  like  the  snarl  of  haughty  drums 
And  blare  of  trumpets,  when  a  great  one  comes 
Down  some  thronged  breathless  city  thorough 
fare: 

And  yours  is  like  a  song  that  fills  the  air 
Of  evening  when  the  dew  has  made  it  sweet 
And   Peace  walks  through  the  dusk  with  quiet 
feet. 

My  love  is  like  the  visual  shout  of  red 
That  threads  the  drowsing  of  a  poppy  bed 
In  summer,  when  the  sun  makes  heavy  heat : 
And  yours  is  like  the  white  flower,  cool  and  sweet, 
That  fills  the  kind  shade  with  a  pleasant  scent, 
Unshrivelled  by  the  sun  and  well  content. 

My  dreams  come  robed  in  scarlet  flame  to  me 
And  lead  through  gardens  of  strange  phantasy 
My  fevered  feet ;   where  heavy  odors  cling 
And  birds  of  blood-red  plumage  nest  and  sing 
Delirious  loves,  mad  doubts  and  sacred  trust, 
The  pathos  and  the  joy  of  human  dust. 
35 


XVIII 
WEARY 

MY  brain  is  weary  with  the  whirling  day ! 

Snatch  me  away ! 

Away  from  cold,  sane  living,  quiet  breath ! 

I  ne'er  have  seen  the  proof  of  human  laws  : 

Only  the  warm  vast  Cause 

Shall  lead    me  to   your    arms,    your  lips,    your 

breast ! 

Teach  me  to  wrest 
The  sweetness  out  of  living  unto  death ! 

I  only  know  I  draw  a  fevered  breath, 

I  only  know  my  eyes  are  fagged  and  dim  — 

Fill  up  my  soul  with  beauty  to  the  brim ! 

I  am  so  weary,  and  your  mouth  is  red  — 
Pillow  my  head ! 


XIX 
IF  THIS  BE  SIN 

CAN  this  be  sin  ? 

This  ecstasy  of  arms  and  eyes  and  lips, 
This  thrilling  of  caressing  finger-tips, 
This  toying  with  incomparable  hair  ? 
(I  close  my  dazzled  eyes,  you  are  so  fair !) 
This  answer  of  caress  to  fond  caress, 
This  exquisite  maternal  tenderness  ? 
How  could  so  much  of  beauty  enter  in, 
If  this  be  sin  ? 

Can  it  be  wrong  ? 

This  cry  of  flesh  to  flesh,  so  like  a  song  ? 
This  fusing  of  two  atoms  with  a  kiss, 
Hurled  to  the  black  and  pitiless  abyss  ? 

Can  it  be  crime 

That  we  should   snatch  one  happy  hour  from 

Time  — 

Time  that  has  naught  but  death  for  you  and  me  ? 
(How  soon,  O  Dearest,  shall  we  cease  to  be !) 
And  could  one  frenzied  hour  of  love  or  lust 
Augment  the  final  tragedy  of  dust  ? 
37 


3  8  THE  QUEST 

E'en  though  we  be  two  sinners  burned  with  bliss, 
Kiss  me  again,  that  warm  round  woman's  kiss ! 
Close  up  the  gates  of  gold  !     I  go  not  in  — 
If  this  be  sin. 


XX 

LET  DOWN  YOUR  HAIR 

UNBIND  your  hair,  and  let  its  masses  be 
Soft  midnight  on  the  weary  eyes  of  me. 
I  faint  before  the  dazzle  of  your  breast ; 
Make  shadow  with  your  hair  that  I  may  rest, 
And  I  will  cool  my  fevered  temples  there : 
Let  down  your  hair. 

Ah  —  so  !     It  falls  like  night  upon  a  day 
Too  bright  for  peace.     It  is  a  cruel  way 
That  leads  to  this,  alas,  which  is  but  pain. 
I  am  athirst  —  your  tresses  fall  like  rain ; 
Ah,  wrap  me  close  and  bind  me  captive  there 
Amid  your  hair ! 

How  much  my  soul  has  given  that  my  flesh 
Might  lie  a  thrall  in  this  enchanted  mesh  ! 
Something  I  grope  for  that  I  used  to  hold ; 
Something  it  was  bought  dearly  —  cheaply  sold ; 
Something  divine  was  strangled  unaware 
Here  in  your  hair ! 

39 


4o  THE  QUEST 

But  no  —  I  will  not  grieve  —  will  not  complain. 
Let  your  hair  fall  upon  me  like  night  rain 
And  shut  me  from  myself,  and  make  me  blind ! 
How  can  I  deem  this  bondage  aught  but  kind  ? 
And  yet  —  I  cannot  sleep  for  some  dumb  care 
Here  in  your  hair. 


XXI 
THE  LYRIC  NIGHT 

0  GIRL,  if  you  could  die  before  the  dawn 
Makes  shoddy  this  the  garment  of  our  dream, 
Above  your  shapely  form  of  chiselled  ice 

1  could  weep  tears  of  gladness,  seeing  how 
The  bitter  freeze  of  death  had  chastened  you ! 

But  Day  will  come  a-knocking  at  the  blinds, 
Flooding  the  secret  nooks  of  our  delight. 
The  night  lamp's  glow,  conniving  at  our  joy, 
Shall  struggle  vainly  with  the  virile  Dawn, 
Sending  a  loathsome  odor  from  its  grease; 
And  all  the  gaud  and  tinsel  of  this  dream 
That  now  seems  gold,  shall  be  a  mockery ! 

Oh  I  could  smile  upon  you  here  in  death, 
For  Death  is  chaste  and  wise  and  very  kind ; 
But  my  soul  aches  that  it  must  see  you  walk 
To-morrow  in  the  vulgar  gaze  of  Day, 
Lifelike,  yet  dead  —  so  dead  to  what  you  were. 
41 


42  THE  QUEST 

Kiss  me  again  before  the  stars  snuff  out ! 
Once  more  before  the  lyric  Night  be  lost 
Amid  the  prosy  droning  of  the  Day ! 


XXII 
TITAN-WOMAN 

0  GREAT  kind  Night, 
Calm  Titan- Woman  Night ! 
Broad-bosomed,  motherly,  a  comforter  of  men  ! 
Reach  out  thy  arms  for  me 

And  in  thy  jewelled  hair 

Hide  thou  my  face  and  blind  mine  aching  eyes ! 

1  hate  the  strumpet  smile 

Of  Day !     No  peace  hath  she. 

Draw  thou  me  closer  to  thy  veiled  face ! 

For  thou  art  womanlike, 

A  lover  and  a  mother, 

And  thou  canst  wrap  me  close  and  make  me  dream, 

As  one  not  cursed  with  light. 

I  shall  forget  my  flesh, 

This  flesh  that  burns  and  aches 

And  fevers  into  hideous,  shameless  deeds ! 

And  in  the  sweet  blind  hours 
I  shall  seek  out  thy  lips, 
I  shall  dream  sweetly  of  thy  Titan  form ; 
43 


44  THE  QUEST 

The  languid  majesty 

Of  smooth  colossal  limbs 

At  ease  upon  the  hemisphere  for  couch ! 

And  of  thy  veiled  face 

Sweet  fancies  I  shall  fashion ; 

Half  lover-like  I  seek  thee,  yearning  toward  thee ! 

For  I  am  sick  of  light, 

Mine  eyes  ache,  I  am  weary. 

O  Woman,  Titan-Woman ! 

Though  lesser  ones  forsake  me, 

Yet  thou  wilt  share  my  couch  when  I  am  weary. 

Thy  fingers  !     Ah,  thy  fingers  ! 

They  touch  me !     Lift  me  closer, 

Extinguish  me  amid  thy  jewelled  tresses ! 

Thou  wert  the  first  great  mother, 

Shalt  be  the  last  fair  woman :. 

White  breasts  of  flesh  grow  cold,  soft  flesh  lips 

wither : 

O  First  and  Ultimate, 
O  Night,  thou  Titan-Woman, 
Thou  wilt  not  fail  me  when  these  fall  to  dust ! 

The  moon  upon  thy  forehead ! 

The  stars  amid  thy  black  locks ! 

Extinguish  me  upon  thy  breast,  amid  thy  tresses ! 


XXIII 
THE  MORNING  GIRL 

LISTEN  !    All  the  world  is  still ; 
One  bleared  hour  and  night  is  gone. 
See  yon  lonely  moon-washed  hill 
Lift  its  head  to  catch  the  dawn ! 

In  the  east  the  eager  light 
Sets  the  curtained  dusk  a-sag ; 
And  all  the  royal  robe  of  Night 
Frays  cheaply  —  like  a  rag ! 

Once  I  felt  a  lifting  joy 
When  I  saw  the  day  unfurl, 
Watching,  just  a  laughing  boy, 
For  the  Morning  Girl. 

Oft  I  met  her  in  the  dew 
Face  to  face,  her  sapphire  eyes 
Burning  on  me  through  the  blue 
Of  the  morning  skies. 

And  her  pure  and  dazzling  breast 
Made  with  joy  my  senses  swoon, 
45 


46  THE  QUEST 

As  she  burned  from  crest  to  crest 
Upward  toward  the  noon. 

Now  no  more  I  seek  her  shrine, 
Seek  no  more  her  golden  hair 
Sparkling  in  the  morning  shine 
And  the  purple  air. 

Comes  no  more  the  Morning  Girl, 
Glows  not  now  her  golden  head, 
When  the  clouds  of  dawn  unfurl  — 
Purple,  yellow,  red. 

Now  the  waning  of  the  night 
Means  another  day  is  near; 
Just  a  haggard  splotch  of  light, 
A  turning  of  the  sphere  ! 

Would  that  in  the  coming  hour 
I  might  be  that  boy  who  knew 
Fragrant  import  of  the  flower, 
Lyric  impulse  of  the  dew ! 


XXIV 
THE  CITY  OF  DUST 

BEHOLD  me  —  a  shadow ! 

The  shadow  of  an  ancient  laughing  thing ! 

Fallen  columns  disintegrated  with  time ; 

Sacred  mounds  insulted  with  the  growth  of  scorn 
ful  weeds ; 

Shattered  arches  haunted  by  the  lizard  and  the 
snake : 

This  is  my  Babylon  —  the  Babylon  I  built  and 
feasted  in ! 

O,  but  the  wantonness  of  my  Babylon  ! 

The  princely  prodigality  of  my  Babylon  ! 

This  was  the  throne  —  I  sat  upon  it. 

I  sat   upon   it   and   feasted   mine  ears  with   the 

haughty  trumpets, 
Mine  eyes  with  the  scarlet  and  purple. 

And  once  in  this  long  fallow  garden  a  lily  grew : 
It  was  my  lily  —  it  grew  for  me. 
Weeds  grow  there  now  —  they  grow  for  me. 
47 


48  THE  QUEST 

They  grow  there  now  and  flaunt  their  ragged  coats 

in  the  sun  — 
Ruffians  and  shameless ! 
If  I  weep  above  my  fallen  Lily,  will  it  grow  ? 

The  lizard  flees  from  me  and  the  snake  hisses, 
And  I  am  lonesome  —  lonesome  in  my  Babylon. 

How  shall  I  pile  up  again  the  kingly  walls  ? 

I  cry  out :  my  voice  is  as  the  yell  of  a  jackal  — 
impotent. 

The  Wind  dances  with  the  Dust  athwart  my  tessel 
lated  courtyards; 

The  Wind  and  the  Dust  —  their  music  is  a  thren 
ody. 

How  can  I  rebuild  my  Babylon  ? 
How  conjure  back  the  magic  of  the  olden  time  ? 
How  can  I  rebuild  my  dust  heaps  into  a  city  — 
The  City  of  My  Ancient  Dream  ? 


XXV 

THE  FOOL'S  MOTHER 

WHEN  I  —  the  fool  —  am  dead, 

There  will  be  one  to  stand  above  my  head, 

Her  wan  lips  yearning  for  my  quiet  lips 

That  stung  her  soul  so  oft  with  bitter  cries. 

And  I  shall  feel  forgiving  finger-tips 

And  I  shall  hear  her  saying  with  her  sighs : 

"This  fool  I  mothered  sucked  a  bitter  breast; 

His  life  was  fever  and  his  soul  was  fire : 

O  burning  fool,  O  restless  fool  at  rest, 

None  other  knew  how  high  you  could  aspire, 

None  other  knew  how  deep  your  soul  could  sink!" 

And  when  these  words  above  the  fool  are  said, 
The  others  ranged  about  the  room  shall  think : 
'The  fool  is  dead.' 


49 


XXVI 
LET  ME  LIVE  OUT  MY  YEARS 

LET  me  live  out  my  years  in  heat  of  blood  ! 
Let  me  die  drunken  with  the  dreamer's  wine ! 
Let  me  not  see  this  soul-house  built  of  mud 
Go  toppling  to  the  dust  —  a  vacant  shrine  ! 

Let  me  go  quickly  like  a  candle  light 
Snuffed  out  just  at  the  heyday  of  its  glow ! 
Give  me  high  noon  —  and  let  it  then  be  night ! 
Thus  would  I  go. 

And  grant  me,  when  I  face  the  grisly  Thing, 
One  haughty  cry  to  pierce  the  gray  Perhaps ! 
Let  me  be  as  a  tune-swept  fiddlestring 
That  feels  the  Master  Melody  —  and  snaps  ! 


XXVII 
PRAYER  OF  AN  ALIEN  SOUL 

0  CENTER  of  the  Scheme, 

Star-Flinger,  Beauty-Builder,  Shaping  Dream ! 
Now  as  the  least  in  all  thy  space  I  stand 
An  alien  in  a  strange  and  lonesome  land. 

1  lift  a  little  voice  of  pigmy  pain ; 

I  hurl  it  out  —  up  —  down  —  and  shall  I  cry  in  vain  ? 
Hear  thou  the  prayer  that  struggles  in  this  song  — 
Let  me  not  linger  long ! 

I  crave  the  boon  of  dying  into  life ! 

Extend  a  pitying  knife 

And  let  these  flesh-gyves  part,  let  me  be  free  1 

Are  we  not  kin  ?     Am  I  not  part  of  thee  ? 

Am  I  not  as  a  ripple  in  a  cranny  of  thy  sea  ? 

What  part  have  I  in  sequent  wretched  eves, 

Blear  dawns,   dull  noons,  the  budding  and  the 

falling  of  the  leaves  ? 

Why  must  I  drag  about  this  chain  of  years, 
Long  rusted  red  with  tears  ? 
Why  must  I  crawl  when  I  have  wings  to  fly  ? 
Behold  thy  child  —  the  Winged  One  —  it  is  I ! 


52  THE  QUEST 

At  times  here  in  the  dust 
I  lift  my  head,  I  strive  to  sing  —  I  must ! 
The  miracle  of  growing  wraps  me  round ! 
Light !     Sound ! 
Form !     Motion !     Upward   yearning !    Outward 

reaching ! 

A  universal  praying,  dumb  beseeching ! 
I  feel  that  I  am  more  than  flesh  and  futile, 
A  being  ultra-carnal,  super-brutal ! 
I  understand  these  growing  green  beseechers, 
These     hopeful     climbers     and     these     earnest 

reachers ! 

I  understand  their  yearnings  every  one, 
How  each  tense  fibre  hungers  for  the  sun ! 
I  lay  my  hand  upon  the  sturdy  weed 
Whose  darkling  purpose  burst  the  prison-seed 
And  cleft  the  mud  and  took  its  light  and  dew, 
Looked  up,  reached  out,  believed  in  life  —  and 

grew  ! 

I  know  that  we  are  kin ; 
That  hope  is  virtue  and  that  doubt  is  sin ; 
And  o'er  me  comes  a  hungering  for  song  : 
I  lift  my  voice  —  I  falter.     Ah,  the  long 
Dumb  years,  the  aching  nights  and  days ! 
And  yet  I  raise 

My  unavailing,  immelodious  cry. 
Thine  erstwhile  singing  child  —  behold  !  —  'Tis  I ! 


PRAYER  OF  AN  ALIEN  SOUL  53 

In  this  strange  wretched  prison  of  the  soul 

Shall  I  not  lose  my  swiftness  for  the  Goal  ? 

It  seems  I  must 

At  length  become  too  much  the  kin  of  Dust. 

Ah  me,  the  fever  born  of  Hate  and  Lust ! 

Ah  me,  the  senseless  unmelodic  din ! 

Ah  me,  the  soul-hope  sick  with  fleshly  sin ! 

And  in  my  prison  ancient  dreams  grow  up 

To  fill  with  dust  my  cracked  and  thirst-betraying 

cup; 

Dreams  mantled  in  the  purple  of  dead  glory 
That  filled  the  aeons  out  of  reach  of  human  story : 
Not  always  have  I  worn  these  dusty  rags ! 

The  Purpose  of  my  being  falters,  lags, 

And  I  am  sick,  sick,  sick  to  live  again. 

Yet  not  because  of  this  poor  dust-born  pain 

Do  I  cry  out  and  grope  about  for  thee. 

I  hear  the  far  cry  of  my  destiny 

Whose  meaning  sings  beyond  the  furthest  sun. 

I  faint  in  these  red  chains,  and  I  would  'rise  and 

run, 

O  Center  of  the  Scheme, 
Star-Flinger,  Beauty-Builder,  Shaping  Dream ! 


XXVIII 
THE  ANCIENT  STORY 

IT  is  the  ancient  story  lived  anew. 

Dost  thou  remember  how  the  mighty  Jew 

Spoke  at  the  table  of  the  Pharisee 

And  puzzled  all  who  heard  Him ;   tenderly 

Forgiving  her  whose  soul  was  red  with  sin 

And  seared  with  lust  ?     How  that  she  entered  in 

Where  sat  the  Lord,  and  cast  her  down  and  wept  ? 

How  to  His  feet  she  crept 

And  washed  them  with  her  tears  ? 

Howe'er  that  be, 

I  have  lived  out  this  ancient  tale  with  thee; 
Only  I  am  the  sinner,  thou  the  saint. 
With    heart    bowed    down    and    limbs    grown 

strangely  faint, 

I  creep  unto  thy  feet ;   cleanse  off  with  tears 
The  stains  they  got  that  followed  all  these  years 
The  guilty  paths  I  made,  the  cruel  ways 
That  led  unto  a  blood-red  night  of  haze. 
They  were  my  paths,  and  this  for  thee  sufficed ! 
54 


THE  ANCIENT  STORY  55 

I  gaze  into  thine  eyes  and  see  the  Christ, 
Calm-eyed,  great-souled,  the  Pitier !     I  see 
How  much  and  yet  how  little  after  me 
Thine  aching  feet  have  followed !  see  how  deep 
I  grovel  from  the  height  that  thou  dost  keep, 
A  sinner,  yet  unsoiled. 

Lift  thou  me  there 

Unto  the  heaven  of  thy  face  and  hair 
That  shines  for  me  far  off  as  summer  dawn. 
The  night  is  gone ! 

I  feel  the  sunrise  quicken  in  my  blood ! 
My  soul  leaps  clean  from  out  its  lair  of  mud ! 

With  nard  I  do  anoint  thee ;   at  thy  feet 
I  burn  this  myrrh  of  bitter  and  of  sweet. 

Lift  thou  me  there 

Unto  the  heaven  of  thy  face  and  hair, 

And  make  my  soul  complete ! 


XXIX 
THE  LAST  ALTAR 

EREWHILE  beneath  the  lightning  flare  of  passion 
I  saw  huge  visions  flung  athwart  the  gloom ; 
I  built  me  altars  after  pagan  fashion 
And  of  my  hours  I  made  a  hecatomb. 

I  wrought  weird  gods  of  night-stuff  and  of  fancy ; 
I  sought  their  hidden  faces  for  my  law : 
My  days  and  nights  were  filled  with  necromancy, 
And  an  Olympian  awe. 

O  many  a  night  has  seen  my  riot  candles, 
And  heard  the  drunken  revel  of  my  feast, 
Till  Dawn  walked  up  the  blue  with  burning  sandals 
And  made  me  curse  the  east ! 

For  my  faith  was  the  faith  of  dusk  and  riot, 
The  faith  of  fevered  blood  and  selfish  lust ; 
Until  I  learned  that  love  is  cool  and  quiet 
And  not  akin  to  dust. 

For  once,  as  in  Apocalyptic  vision, 
Above  my  smoking  altars  I  could  see 
56 


THE  LAST  ALTAR  57 

My  god's  face,  veilless,  ugly  with  derision  — 
The  shameless,  magnified,  projected  —  Me! 

And  I  have  left  my  ancient  fanes  to  crumble, 
And  I  have  hurled  my  false  gods  from  the  sky; 
I  wish  to  know  the  joy  of  being  humble, 
To  build  great  Love  an  altar  ere  I  die. 


XXX 
RESURRECTION 

THERE  —  close  your  eyes,  poor  eyes  that  wept  for 

me! 

Pillow  your  weary  head  upon  my  arm. 
You  need  not  clutch  me  so,  I  will  not  flee; 
Here  am  I  bound  by  no  mere  carnal  charm. 

At  last  I  am  not  blind,  for  I  can  see 
Through  your  mere  flesh  as  only  spirit  can ; 
I  feel  at  last  the  world-old  tragedy, 
The  sacrifice  of  woman  unto  man. 

In  that  far  time  when  my  first  father  sought 
To  cool  the  strange  mad  fever  in  his  veins, 
Seeing  how  fair  the  creature  he  had  bought 
With  straining  sinews  and  wild  battle  pains ; 

Then  was  this  moment  of  your  anguish  sown, 
And  you  have  reaped  but  do  not  understand. 
How  frail  and  thin  your  blue-veined  hands  have 

grown, 

How  trustingly  they  clutch  my  guilty  hand ! 
58 


RESURRECTION  59 

The  story  of  the  world  is  in  your  face ; 
I  gaze  upon  it,  hearing  through  dead  years 
The  wailings  of  the  women  of  the  race, 
The  melancholy  fall  of  many  tears. 

In  many  a  Garden  of  Gethsemane, 
Sweet  with  strange  odors,  redolent  of  bliss, 
Again  is  played  the  human  tragedy 
With  Judas  waiting  in  the  dark  to  kiss. 

Not  only  upon  Calvary  has  died 

The  patient  tortured  Christ  misunderstood ; 

Over  and  over  is  He  crucified 

Wherever  man  besmirches  womanhood. 

I  who  have  laughed  too  long  at  sacred  things, 
Who  felt  no  god  about  me  in  the  gloom, 
Now  hear  a  Something  mystical  that  sings 
Sweeter  than  love,  yet  terrible  as  doom. 

In  your  frail  face  I  see  a  glory  grow 
That  smites  me,  guilty,  like  a  burning  rod ! 
I  kneel  before  you,  suppliant,  and  know 
That  your  thin  hands  may  lead  me  unto  God  ! 


A  VISION  OF  WOMAN 


A  VISION  OF  WOMAN 

I  LOVE  you.     Do  you  smile  ?     Ah,  well  you  may  : 
You  who  have  heard  the  beast  in  many  men 
Mouth  glibly  that  sweet  spirit  phrase  so  oft. 
It  is  a  word  you  scoff  at  here,  I  know. 
And   yet  —  when   one   dreams    sleepless   all   the 

night, 

Somehow  a  sense  of  the  eternal  things, 
Creeps  in  upon  him,  till  the  old  beast  sleeps, 
And  spirits  wise  with  time  possess  the  hush. 

It  seems  a  life  has  passed  since  yestereve; 
'Twas  then  I  met  you  —  just  a  night  ago. 
How  little  can  a  clock-gong  measure  dreams ! 

You  sat  beneath  the  tawdry  glare  of  gas 

Among  the  weary  painted  woman-flowers, 

Exhaling  sickly  scents ;   while  to  the  tune 

Of  shrill  barbaric  fiddles,  squawking  horns, 

And  that  piano  the  mulatto  played, 

(Nay,  smitten  by  the  devil's  dancing  feet !) 

The  haggard  creatures  wreathed  the  dizzy  dance. 

Sin  errant  rides  for  heavens  built  of  mist ; 
But  once,  Oh,  once  Sin  lead  me  to  the  goal ! 
63 


64  THE  QUEST 

I  saw  you  —  virgin-eyed  and  sunny  haired, 
With  cheeks  whereon  the  country's  kiss  remained, 
And  round  you,  somehow,  the  effluvium 
Of  green  things  smiling  upward  in  the  day. 
Gazing  upon  you,  over  me  there  came 
The  drone  of  cornfields  in  the  warm  damp  night ; 
Far,  far  away  I  saw  the  wheat  a-shimmer ; 
The  smell  of  fresh-turned  earth  was  everywhere ! 
And  oh  your  touch  flung  trooping  through  my  blood 
Such  dream-wrought  throngs  of  maiden  violets ! 
So  all  my  thirsty  soul  cried  out  to  you, 
The  one  green  spot  in  all  that  arid  place. 

And  yet  —  I  did  not  love  you  then  as  now. 
The  smouldering  ashes  of  old  primal  lusts 
The  strident  fiddles  wakened,  and  the  wine. 
It  was  a  thirst  for  rivers  of  delight, 
A  tiger  hunger  for  the  warm  red  feast. 
And  so  I  bought  you  —  paid  the  stated  price  — 
Washed  out  my  scruples  in  a  flood  of  wine. 
Then  all  the  smell  of  violets  died  out, 
The  visioned  fields  of  happy  growing  things 
Went  stifling  hot,  oppressive  with  the  breath 
Of  flowers  that  never  blossomed  in  the  day. 
And  then  when  I  had  borne  you  from  the  place 
Of  glare  and  noise,  where  painted  lilies  swayed 
Unto  the  shrieking  hell-wind  of  the  fiddles, 


A  VISION  OF   WOMAN  65 

You  flung  aside  those  garish  strumpet  garments 
And  stood  before  me ! 

So  would  April  look 
If  all  the  lure  and  wonder  of  that  time 
Could  flesh  itself  in  woman  !    And  I  knew 
'Twas  thus  of  old  the  maiden  Lais  stood, 
Fresh  from  the  wholesome  fields  of  Sicily, 
Before  Apelles  quickened  with  his  dream. 
A  ghost  of  spring  crept  back  into  the  world 
Haunting  the  hot,  autumnal  hollow  of  it. 
It  seemed  the  time  when  maples  ooze  their  sap, 
When  humid  winds  of  promise  sing  all  night 
Beneath  the  stars  that  run  aghast  through  mist : 
When  rivers  wake  and  burst  their  shrouds  of  ice 
To  boom  down  swollen  channels.     Cherry  bows 
Flung  to  the  winds  their  odorous  living  snows, 
And  apple  blossoms  drifted  in  the  breeze, 
Pink    as    the    buds    that    tipped    your    spotless 

breasts. 

Up  through  the  spring-sweet  vistas  of  the  dream 
Old  Greece  came  back  with  all  her  purple  bays, 
Her  ships  of  venture  and  her  fighting  men, 
Her  sculptors  and  her  painters  and  her  bards, 
Her  temples  and  her  ever-living  gods, 
Her  women  whom  to  name  must  be  to  sing. 

I  touched  you  —  and  'twas  Helen  that  I  touched ; 
F 


66  THE  QUEST 

And  in  my  blood  young  Paris  lived  again ; 
And  all  the  grief  and  gloom  of  Ilium, 
Her  wailing  wives  enslaved  to  foreign  lords, 
Her  stricken  warriors  and  her  gutted  fanes, 
Her  song-built  towers  falling  in  the  smoke, 
And  all  the  anguish  of  her  tragic  Queen, 
Seemed  naught  for  one  round  burning  kiss  from 
you! 

You  thought  it  was  the  wine ;   ah,  so  it  was  — 
The  wine  of  woman  fraught  with  life  and  death, 
The  wine  of  beauty  and  the  wine  of  doom. 
You  laughed ;  and  Greece  with  all  her  purple  bays, 
Her  gladness  and  her  weeping  went  to  dust; 
While  through  the  panting  hollow  of  the  world 
A  hot  storm  grumbled  up.     And  we  alone 
In  some  tremendous  lightning-riven  night ! 

But  when  the  quiet  came,  and  down  the  dark 

The  awful  music  or  our  youth  died  out, 

And  in  the  gloomy  hollow  lived  no  sound 

Except  the  sullen  thunder  of  our  hearts, 

Your  languid  kissing  mouth  seemed  like  a  wound 

Wet  with  the  blood  of  something  I  had  killed  ! 

And  while  you  stroked  myM  dampened  hair,  and 

lisped 

Delirious  nothings,  over  me  there  came 
The  sad  still  singing  of  the  things  that  are. 


A  VISION  OF  WOMAN  67 

Close  nestled  in  the  hollow  of  my  arm, 
You  slept  like  any  weary  little  girl, 
Unconscious  of  the  ancient  weight  you  bore. 
But  I  lay  wakeful  with  the  ghostly  years. 

Above  the  glooming  surf  of  yesterdays 
The  faces  of  all  women  that  have  been 
Bloomed  beacon-like,  and  lit  with  ghastly  glare 
The  wreck-strewn  coasts  of  the  eternal  sea  ! 
Faces  of  patient  woe  and  wise  with  grief, 
Faces  from  which  my  mother  gazed  at  me, 
Faces  that  were  one  face  with  that  of  Christ ! 
And  some  with  haggard  unforgetting  eyes 
Haunted  far  sea-rims,  gray  with  ships  of  mist ; 
And  some  were  drawn  and  white  above  the  slain, 
With  sick  lips  mumbling  kisses  of  farewell ; 
And  in  them  all  the  wistful  mother-light. 
Once  more  for  me  the  Carthaginian  pyre 
Built  day  amid  the  dusk  of  sordid  things ; 
And  that  sad  Queen  whom  all  the  world  shall  love 
Because  one  man  forsook  her,  far  away 
Followed  with  tearless  tragic  eyes  the  sail 
That  bellied  skyward  in  a  wind  of  Fate. 
And  through  the  night  the  wail  of  Hecuba 
Brought  back  the  Thracian  sorrow,  made  it  mine : 
While  in  the  aching  hush  that  followed  it 
Red  drop  by  drop  I  heard  the  Virgin's  blood. 


68  THE  QUEST 

Fair  Phryne  came  and  bared  her  breast  to  me 
With  ancient  sorrow  pleading  in  her  gaze, 
And  on  her  painted  cheeks  my  sister's  tears. 
And  one  with  ashen  face  and  tiger  eyes 
Held  huddled  close  the  remnant  of  her  brood. 
One,  pale  above  a  loom,  with  nervous  hands 
Wove  and  unwove  the  shroud  of  each  day's  hope  — 
The  web  of  Woman's  weaving.     Hand  in  hand, 
The  Roman  wife,  the  subtle  Queen  of  Nile, 
Walked  down  the  night  —  one  woman  at  the  last. 
And  haloed  round  with  an  eternal  spring, 
Rode  she  with  whom  all  men  have  sinned ;  her  face 
Foreshadowed  with  the  doom  that  was  to  be : 
And  aged  with  more  than  years,  unqueened,  and 

yet 

Ten  times  the  former  queen,  I  heard  her  sob 
Amid  the  cloistral  gloom  at  Almesbury. 
And  oh,  I  saw  upon  a  mystic  sea 
A  rose-souled  lily  fleshed  into  a  girl, 
Tall  as  a  fighting  man  and  terrible 
With  all  the  keen  clean  beauty  of  a  sword, 
That  one  who  took  the  luring  mystic  cup 
And  drank  of  it,  and  thirsted  evermore. 
From  myriad  graves  they  came,  till  night  was  day 
Lit  with  the  radiance  of  them.   Queens  and  slaves ; 
Sweet  maidens  with  the  life-dawn  in  their  eyes; 
Mothers  with  babes  at  breast,  and  painted  harlots ; 


A  VISION  OF  WOMAN  69 

Unsung  forgotten  daughters  of  the  ground, 
Dumb  under  burdens,  with  dull  questioning  eyes 
That  stared  uncomprehending  upon  Fate. 
All  lifted  up  imploring  arms  to  me 
And  over  them  a  wind  of  music  went, 
The  crooning  of  the  mothers  of  the  Race. 

The  vision  passed.     Out  in  the  quiet  night 
Across  the  huddled  roofs  the  clock-gong  tolled. 
I  raised  the  blind.     The  tremulous  woman-star, 
Like  a  great  tear  moon-smitten,  watched  the  town, 
And  thin  soft  whispers  prophesied  the  dawn. 

Bathed  in  the  pure  light  of  the  eternal  stars 
You  lay  asleep  —  a  chiselled  Parian  dream, 
A  spotless  vase  of  sleeping  sacred  fire, 
A  still  white  awe !     No  vandal  hand  had  filched 
The  meaning  from  the  breasts  that  might   not 

know 

The  sad  sweet  thrill  of  nurture.     With  cool  lips 
That  yearned  with  primal  worshippings,  I  kissed 

them; 

And,  though  you  slept,  the  tender  mother  arm, 
Wise  with  old  memories,  sought  the  restless  babe. 

God  makes  you  mothers  spite  of  milkless  breasts ! 
He  only  knows  how  sterile  gardens  dream 


70  THE  QUEST 

Of  bloom  flung  riot :  how  through  arid  night 
The  wooing  rain  comes  kissing  like  a  ghost, 
Unfruitful  kisses ! 

Oh  that  you  might  know 

The  cleansing  wonder  quickening  in  your  blood, 
The  sweet  dream  fleshing  with  the  passing  moons, 
The  wild  red  pang,  the  first  thin  strangled  cry 
From  world  to  world,  the  great  white  after-peace ! 

Across  the  awful  slumber  of  your  face 

God  moved  amid  the  star-sheen.     Something  pure 

Wailed  down  the  vast  hushed  hollows  of  my  soul : 

Oh  better  that  this  lovely  vase  be  shattered, 

Its  sacred  fire  be  spilled  upon  the  night, 

Than  that  another  sun  should  look  upon  it 

Defiled  with  heathen  worship ! 

Yet  'tis  said 

No  thing  of  beauty  ever  is  defiled, 
Somehow  far  off  discordant  sounds  are  wed, 
Somewhere  far  off  the  broken  rays  converge. 

But  oh,  I  saw  you  sitting  in  the  sun 
Before  a  green-girt  cottage  with  your  babes ; 
And  grapes  hung  purple  in  the  afternoon, 
And  there  were  bees  abroad  and  smell  of  fruit; 
And  up  the  shimmering  hillside  went  the  man  — 


A  VISION  OF  WOMAN  71 

Stamped  with  the  kinship  of  the  giving  Earth, 
The  old  Antaean  wisdom  in  his  heart  — 
Glad  in  the  flowing  furrow  turned  for  you. 

See !  stealing  o'er  the  melancholy  roofs 

The  gray  light,  like  the  aching  backward  creep 

Of  some  familiar  sorrow ! 

Oh  the  grapes 
That  never  sun  shall  purple ! 

It  is  day. 


WOMAN-WINE 

I 

ONCE  again  I  see  it,  touch  it, 
Fatal  cup  with  many  a  name ; 
Make  it  mine  and  madly  clutch  it, 
Drink  its  blasting  draught  of  flame  ! 

Cup  of  grief  and  cup  of  woe, 
Cup  of  ancient  woman-wine : 
Fictor  in  mine  overthrow  — 
It  is  mine  ! 

Awful  burning  lips  of  Thais, 
Kiss  me  back  Persepolis  ! 
Break  my  heart  —  I'm  Menelaus ! 
Make  me  Paris  with  a  kiss ! 

Smiling  Thing  with  painted  heart, 
Canker  at  the  soul  of  Peace, 
Thou  hast  wakened  by  thine  art 
All  the  wanton  flutes  of  Greece ! 

Lest  I  kill  thee  in  my  fury 

Let  the  heaped  white  wonders  speak 

72 


WOMAN-WINE  73 

Awe  me  as  the  ancient  jury  — 
Phryne,  make  me  weak  ! 

Asker,  Taker,  Devil- Woman, 
Hiss  the  hellish  wish  again  ! 
Death  fleshed  out  to  mask  as  human, 
Dancer  for  the  heads  of  men  ! 

Honied  Wooer,  Victor-Slayer, 
Sing  me  drowsy,  take  my  sword ! 
I  am  paid,  O  sweet  Betrayer 
Awful  as  a  battle-horde ! 

Ancient  wine  of  gloom  and  glory 
Wets  thy  warm,  red,  wooing  lips : 
All  the  scarlet  Queens  of  Story 
Touch  me  through  thy  finger-tips. 

II 

Nay !     In  gentler,  sweeter  fashion 
How  thy  warm  soul  blossoms  up ! 
Martyr  to  the  deathless  Passion, 
Quaffer  of  the  Iseult-cup  ! 

Thou  wert  heart-sick  Sappho,  burning 
Downward  to  the  stern  gray  sea. 
Thou  didst  soothe  the  Master,  yearning 
For  the  hills  of  Galilee. 


74  THE  QUEST 

Thou  the  hopeful  heart  of  sorrow 
Singing  through  the  gloom  of  years ; 
Light  of  every  black  to-morrow, 
Wise  with  yesterdays  of  tears. 

Thou  the  doomed  eternal  Maiden, 
Wailing  by  the  windless  sea. 
Thou  art  Mary,  sorrow-laden  — 
Pray  for  me ! 

Pale  night-weeper  at  the  cross, 
Death  for  thee  hath  not  sufficed ; 
Trusting  through  the  gloom  of  loss, 
Thou  didst  view  the  risen  Christ. 

Burden-bearer,  Beauty-maker, 
Sacred  Fountain  of  my  life ; 
Mighty  Giver,  meagre  Taker  — 
Mother,  Sister,  Wife ! 

Oh,  at  last,  my  heart's  Desire, 
Build  the  dream  that  shall  endure  I 
Fair  white  Urn  of  Sacred  Firey 
Burn  me  pure  ! 

Cup  of  sweet  felicity, 
Cup  of  ancient  woman-wine  ! 
Vanquished  in  my  victory  — 
It  is  mine  ! 


EROS 

LURED  as  the  Earth  lures  Summer, 
Wooing  as  Sunlight  the  Seed  — 
I  am  the  mystical  Comer, 
I  am  the  Will  and  the  Deed ! 

Over  and  over  forever 
The  glad  sad  story  is  told ; 
Fleeing,  escaping  me  never, 
I  am  your  Shower  of  Gold. 

Subtle  as  April  creeping 
Flower-shod  out  of  the  South, 
I  am  the  dream  of  your  sleeping, 
Fever  am  I  at  your  mouth. 

I  am  the  sap-lift  singing 
The  hope  of  a  last  glad  birth  : 
I  am  the  May-Fog  clinging  — 
You  are  the  Earth  ! 

And  mine  are  the  pangful  kisses 
That  waken  the  Dream  in  the  Dust ; 
Bringer  of  aching  blisses, 
Cruel  I  seem  as  Lust. 
75 


;6  THE  QUEST 

I  come  like  a  wind  of  disaster, 
Flinging  the  whips  of  the  rain; 
Oh,  I  am  a  pitiless  Master  — 
I  am  glorified  Pain. 

This  is  the  Story  of  stones  — 
(The  Rain  and  the  Seed  and  the  Sod) 
Awful  with  glooms  and  glories, 
These  are  the  rites  of  the  god ! 

But  Oh,  when  the  storm  and  its  riot 

Sleeps  in  the  after-hush, 

I  am  the  dawn-filled  quiet  — 

I  am  the  thrush. 

I  am  the  sun  to  cherish, 

I  am  the  dew  to  feed 

You  with  your  blooms  that  perish, 

Martyrs  unto  the  seed. 

Ancient  and  ending  never, 
This  is  the  Law  and  the  Plan. 

Oh,  you  are  the  Woman  forever  — 
/  am  the  Man  ! 


G.EA,  MOTHER 

,  Mother  Gaea,  now  at  last, 
Weaned  with  too  much  seeking,  here  I  cast 
My  soul,  my  heart,  my  body  down  on  thee ! 
Dust  of  thy  dust,  canst  thou  not  mother  me  ? 

Not  as  an  infant  weeping  do  I  come ; 
These  tears  are  tears  of  battle ;   like  a  drum 
Struck  by  wild  fighting  hands  my  temples  throb ; 
Sob  of  the  breathless  swordsman  is  my  sob, 
Cry  of  the  charging  spearman  is  my  cry ! 

0  Mother,  not  as  one  who  craves  to  die 

1  fall  upon  thee  panting.     Fierce  as  hate, 
Strong  as  a  tiger  fighting  for  his  mate, 
Soul-thewed  and  eager  for  yet  one  more  fray  — 
O  Gaea,  Mother  Gaea,  thus  I  pray ! 

Have  I  not  battled  well  ? 

My  sword  has  ripped  the  gloom  from  many  a  hell 
To  let  the  sweet  day  kiss  my  anguished  brow ! 
Oh,  I  have  begged  no  favors  until  now; 
Have  asked  no  pity,  though  I  bit  the  dust; 
77 


78  THE  QUEST 

For  always  in  my  blood  the  battle-lust 

Flung  awful  sword-songs  down  my  days  and  nights. 

But  now  at  last  of  all  my  golden  fights 

The  greatest  fight  is  on  me  —  and  I  pray. 

Oh  let  my  prayer  enfold  thee  as  the  day, 
Crush  down  upon  thee  as  the  murky  night, 
Rush  over  thee  a  thunder-gust,  alight 
With  swift  electric  blades !     Nay,  let  it  be 
As  rain  flung  down  upon  the  breast  of  thee ! 
With  something  of  the  old  Uranian  fire 
I  kiss  upon  thee  all  my  deep  desire. 

If  ever  in  the  silence  round  about, 

Thy  scarlet  blossoms  smote  me  as  a  shout ; 

If  ever  I  have  loved  thee,  pressed  my  face 

Close  to  thy  bosom  in  a  lonesome  place 

And  breathed  thy  breath  with  more  than  lover's 

breathing ; 

If  ever  in  the  spring,  thy  great  trees,  seething 
With  hopeful  juices,  felt  my  worship-kiss  — 
Grant  thou  the  prayer  that  struggles  out  of  this, 
My  first  blood-cry  for  succor  in  a  fight ! 

Alone  I  shouldered  up  the  crushing  night, 
Alone  I  flung  about  me  halls  of  day, 
Unmated  went  I  fighting  on  my  way, 
Lured  on  by  some  far-distant  final  good, 


G^EA,  MOTHER  G^EA!  79 

Unwarmed  by  grudging  fires  of  bitter  wood, 
Feeding  my  hunger  with  my  tiger  heart. 
Mother  of  things  that  yearn  and  grow,  thou  art ! 
The  Titan  brood  sucked  battle  from  thy  paps ! 
O  Mother  mine,  sweet-breasted  with  warm  saps, 
Once  more  Antaeus  touches  thee  for  strength ! 
My  victories  assail  me !     Oh  at  length 
My  lawless  isolation  dies  away ! 

For  Mother,  giving  Mother,  like  the  day 
Flung  down  from  midnight,  She  who  was  to  be 
Floods  all  the  brooding  thunder-glooms  of  me ! 
And  in  the  noon-glow  that  her  face  hath  wrought, 
Stands  forth  the  one  great  foe  I  have  not  fought  — 
The  close-ranked  cohorts  of  my  selfish  heart. 

Suckler  of  virile  fighting  things  thou  art ! 
Breathe  in  me  something  of  the  tireless  sea ; 
The  urge  of  mighty  rivers  breathe  in  me  ! 
Cloak  me  with  purple  like  thy  haughty  peaks ; 
Oh  arm  me  as  a  wind-flung  cloud  that  wreaks 
Hell-furies  down  the  midnight  battle-murk ! 
Fit  me  to  do  this  utmost  warrior's  work  — 
To  face  myself  and  conquer ! 

Mother  dear, 

Thou  seemest  a  woman  in  this  silence  here ; 
And  'tis  thy  daughter  who  hath  come  to  me 


8o  THE  QUEST 

With  all  the  wise,  sad  mother-heart  of  thee, 

Thy  luring  wonder  and  immensity ! 

For  in  her  face  strong  sweet  earth-passions  brood  : 

I  feel  them  as  in  some  wild  solitude 

The  love-sweet  panting  summer's  yearning-pain. 

Teach  me  the  passion  of  the  wooing  rain  ! 
Teach  me  to  fold  her  like  a  summer  day  — 
To  kiss  her  in  the  great  good  giant  way, 
As  Uranus  amid  the  cosmic  dawn ! 

Oh,  all  the  mad  spring  revelling  is  gone, 

And  now  —  the  wise  sweet  summer !     Let  me  be 

Deep-rooted  in  thy  goodness  as  a  tree, 

Strong  in  the  storms  with  skyward  blossomings ! 

Teach  me  the  virile  trust  of  growing  things, 

The  wisdom  of  slow  fruiting  in  the  sun ! 

I  would  be  joyous  as  the  winds  that  run 
Light  footed  on  the  wheatfields.     Oh  for  her, 
I  would  be  gentle  as  the  winds  that  stir 
The  forest  in  the  noon  hush.     Lift  me  up ! 
Fill  all  my  soul  with  kindness  as  a  cup 
With  cool  and  bubbling  waters  !     Mother  dear, 
Gaea,  great  Gaea,  'tis  thy  son  —  Oh  hear ! 


NUPTIAL-SONG 

Lo !  the  Field  that  slumbered, 
Sowed  and  winter-sealed ; 
Thralled  and  dream-encumbered ! 
Oh  the  maiden  Field  ! 
Never  Thunder  roused  her, 
Rain  or  yearning  Fire; 
Never  Sun  espoused  her, 
Virile  with  desire. 

Yet  betimes  a  vague  thrill 
Running  in  a  thaw, 
Hinted  at  the  World-Will 
And  the  Lyric  Law ; 
Made  her  guess  at  splendor 
Bursting  out  of  pain; 
Feel  the  clutching  tender 
Fingers  of  the  grain. 

Now  an  end  of  dreaming ! 
Lo  !  the  lover  comes  — 
Flame-wrought  banners  gleaming, 
Haughty  thunder  drums; 
G  81 


82  THE  QUEST 

Joy-  and  sorrow-laden, 
Eager,  wondershod ! 
Sacrifice  the  Maiden 
On  the  altar  of  the  god  ! 

Though  he  come  with  terror, 
Though  he  woo  with  pain. 
Love  is  never  error, 
Kisses  never  vain. 
Victress  in  her  capture, 
Let  the  Maiden  know 
All  the  aching  rapture, 
All  the  singing  woe  ! 

Hark  !  the  regal  Thunder ! 
(Oh  the  huddled  Field  !) 
Tis  the  Night  of  Wonder  — 
Let  the  Maiden  yield  ! 
Oh  the  quiet  after 
All  the  singing  pain  ! 
Oh  the  rippling  laughter 
Of  the  nursing  grain  ! 

Older  and  yet  younger, 
Sadder,  and  yet  blessed, 
With  a  baby-hunger 
Tugging  at  her  breast, 
She  shall  feel  the  Great  Law 


NUPTIAL-SONG  83 

Love,  and  you  shall  grow. 
Give  her  to  the  wild  Awe, 
Let  the  Maiden  know ! 

Sweeter  than  all  other 
Songs  of  lip  or  lyre  — 
Every  Maid  a  Mother, 
Every  Man  a  Sire  : 
Joy  beneath  the  pain  warm, 
God  amidst  the  plan ; 
Field  unto  the  Rainstorm, 
Maid  unto  the  Man ! 


THE  STRANGER  AT  THE  GATE 

A  LYRIC   SEQUENCE   CELEBRATING  THE 
MYSTERY  OF   BIRTH 


To  Enid 


THE  STRANGER  AT  THE  GATE 


THE  WEAVERS 

SUNS  flash,  stars  drift, 
Comes  and  goes  the  moon ; 
Ever  through  the  wide  miles 
Corn-fields  croon 
Patiently,  hopefully, 
A  low,  slow  tune. 

Lovingly,  longingly, 
Labors  without  rest 
Every  happy  cornstalk, 
Weaving  at  her  breast 
Such  a  cozy  cradle 
For  the  coming  guest. 

In  the  flowing  pastures, 
Where  the  cattle  feed, 
Such  a  hidden  love-storm, 
Dying  into  seed  — 
Blue  grass,  slough  grass, 
Wild  flower,  weed ! 
87 


THE  QUEST 

Mark  the  downy  flower-coats 
In  the  hollyhocks ! 
Hark,  the  cooing  Wheat-Soul 
Weaving  for  her  flocks  ! 
Croon-time,  June-time, 
Moon  of  baby  frocks  ! 

Rocking  by  the  window, 
Wrapt  in  visionings, 
Lo,  the  gentle  mother 
Sews  and  sings, 
Shaping  to  a  low  song 
Wee,  soft  things ! 

Patiently,  hopefully, 

Early,  late, 

How  the  wizard  fingers 

Weave  with  Fate 

For  the  naked  youngling 

Crying  at  the  Gate ! 

Sound,  sight,  day,  night 
Fade,  flee  thence; 
Vanished  is  the  brief,  hard 
World  of  sense. 
Hark  !     Is  it  the  plump  grape 
Crooning  from  the  fence  ? 


THE  WEAVERS 

Droning  of  the  surf  where 
Far  seas  boom  ? 
Chanting  of  the  weird  stars 
Big  with  Doom  ? 
Humming  of  the  god-flung 
Shuttles  of  a  loom  ? 

O'er  the  brooding  Summer 
A  green  hush  clings, 
Save  the  sound  of  weaving 
Wee,  soft  things : 
Everywhere  a  mother 
Weaves  and  sings. 


II 

THE  STORY 

YEARLY  thrilled  the  plum  tree 
With  the  mother-mood ; 
Every  June  the  rose  stock 
Bore  her  wonder-child  : 
Every  year  the  wheatlands 
Reared  a  golden  brood  : 
World  of  praying  Rachels, 
Heard  and  reconciled  ! 

"Poet,"  said  the  plum  tree's 
Singing  white  and  green, 
"What  avails  your  mooning, 
Can  you  fashion  plums  ?" 
"Dreamer,"  crooned  the  wheatland's 
Rippling  vocal  sheen, 
"See  my  golden  children 
Marching  as  with  drums  !" 

"By  a  god  begotten," 
Hymned  the  sunning  vine, 
"In  my  lyric  children 
Purple  music  flows !" 
90 


THE  STORY  91 

"Singer,"  breathed  the  rose  bush, 
"Are  they  not  divine  ? 
Have  you  any  daughters 
Mighty  as  a  rose  ?" 

Happy,  happy  mothers  ! 
Cruel,  cruel  words  ! 
Mine  are  ghostly  children. 
Haunting  all  the  ways ; 
Latent  in  the  plum  bloom, 
Calling  through  the  birds, 
Romping  with  the  wheat  brood 
In  their  shadow  plays  ! 

Gotten  out  of  star-glint, 
Mothered  of  the  Moon; 
Nurtured  with  the  rose  scent, 
Wild,  elusive  throng  ! 
Something  of  the  vine's  dream 
Crept  into  a  tune; 
Something  of  the  wheat-drone 
Echoed  in  a  song. 

Once  again  the  white  fires 
Smoked  among  the  plums; 
Once  again  the  world-joy 
Burst  the  crimson  bud ; 


92  THE  QUEST 

Golden  bannered  wheat  broods 
Marched  to  fairy  drums; 
Once  again  the  vineyard 
Felt  the  Bacchic  blood. 

"Lo,  he  comes  —  the  dreamer  — " 
Crooned  the  whitened  boughs, 
"Quick  with  vernal  love-fires  — 
Oh,  at  last  he  knows  ! 
See  the  bursting  plum  bloom 
There  above  his  brows  !" 
"Boaster!"  breathed  the  rose  bush, 
"'Tis  a  budding  rose!" 

Droned  the  glinting  acres, 
"In  his  soul,  mayhap, 
Something  like  a  wheat-dream 
Quickens  into  shape!" 
Sang  the  sunning  vineyard, 
"Lo,  the  lyric  sap 
Sets  his  heart  a-throbbing 
Like  a  purple  grape!" 

Mother  of  the  wheatlands, 
Mother  of  the  plums, 
Mother  of  the  vineyard  — 
All  that  loves  and  grows  — 


THE  STORY  93 

Such  a  living  glory 
To  the  dreamer  comes, 
Mystic  as  a  wheat-song, 
Mighty  as  a  rose! 

Star-glint,  moon-glow. 
Gathered  in  a  mesh  I 
Spring-hope -,  white  fire 
By  a  kiss  beguiled! 
Something  of  the  world-joy 
Dreaming  into  flesh  ! 
Bird-song,  vine-thrill 
Quickened  to  a  child! 


Ill 

THE  NEWS 

LITTLE  Breezes,  lurking  in  the  green-roofed  covers, 
Where  the  dappled  gloaming  keeps  the  cool  night 

dews, 
Up,   and  waft  the  wonder  of  it  unto  countless 

lovers ! 
Set  the  tiger-lily  bells  a-tolling  out  the  news ! 

Down  the  eager  rivers  make  the  glory  of  the  story 

roll; 

Waken  joyful  shivers  in  the  green  gold  hush ; 
Set  it  to  the  warble  of  the  early  morning  oriole; 
Fill  it  with  the  tender,  kissing  rapture  of  a  thrush  ! 

Take  a  little  sorrow  from  the  night  rain  pattering, 
Drowning  in  a  black  flood  stars  and  moon ; 
Take  a  little  terror  from  the  zigzag,  shattering, 
Blue  sword-flash  of  a  storm-struck  noon  ! 

Breathing     through     the     green-aisled     orchard 

chapels, 

Learn  the  holy  music  of  the  world-old  dream ; 
Borrow  from  the  still  scarlet  singing  of  the  apples ; 
Weave  it  in  the  weird  tale's  gloom  and  gleam ! 
94 


THE  NEWS  95 

Hasten  with  the  woven  music,  make  the  Summer 

lyrical, 

Sweet  as  with  the  odors  of  a  southeast  rain  : 
Set  the  corn  a-chatter  o'er  the  glad,  impending 

miracle  — 
A  little  Stranger  whimpers  at  the  Gate  of  Pain  ! 


IV 

IN  THE  NIGHT 

OVER  the  steep  cloud-crags 
The  marching  Day  went  down  — 
Bickering  spears  and  flags, 
Slant  in  a  wind  of  Doom  ! 
Blear  in  the  huddled  shadows 
Glimmer  the  lights  of  the  town ; 
Black  pools  mottle  the  meadows, 
Swamped  in  a  purple  gloom. 

Is  it  the  night  wind  sobbing 
Over  the  wheat  in  head  ? 
Is  it  the  world-heart  throbbing, 
Sad  with  the  coming  years  ? 
Is  it  the  lifeward  creeping 
Ghosts  of  the  myriad  dead, 
Livid  with  wounds  and  weeping 
Wild,  uncleansing  tears  ? 

'Twas  not  a  lone  loon  calling 
There  in  the  darkling  sedge, 
Still  as  the  prone  moon's  falling 
Where  in  the  gloom  it  slinks ! 
96 


IN  THE  NIGHT  97 

Hark  to  the  low  intoning 

There  at  the  hushed  grove's  edge  — 

Is  it  the  pitiless,  moaning 

Voice  of  the  timeless  Sphinx  ? 

Woven  of  dust  and  quiet, 
Winged  with  the  dim  starlight, 
Hideous  dream-sounds  riot, 
Couple  and  breed  and  grow; 
Big  with  the  dread  to-morrow, 
Flooding  the  hollow  night 
With  more  than  a  Thracian  sorrow, 
More  than  a  Theban  woe ! 

Dupe  of  a  lying  pleasure, 
Dying  slave  of  desire  ! 
Dreading  the  swift  erasure. 
The  swoop  of  the  grisly  Jinn, 
Lo,  you  have  trammelled  with  dust 
A  spark  of  the  slumbering  Fire, 
Given  it  nerves  for  lust 
And  feet  for  the  shards  of  sin  ! 

Woe  to  the  dreamer  waking, 
When  the  Dream  shall  stalk  before  him, 
With  terrible  thirsts  for  slaking 
And  hungers  mad  to  be  fed  ! 


98  THE  QUEST 

Oh,  he  shall  sicken  of  giving, 
Cursing  the  mother  that  bore  him  — 
Earth,  so  lean  for  the  living, 
Earth,  so  fat  with  the  dead  ! 

Cease,  O  sounds  that  smother! 
Peace,  mysterious  Flouter ! 
Lo,  where  the  sacred  mother 
Sleeps  in  her  starry  bed, 
Dreams  of  the  blessed  Comer, 
A  white  awe  flung  about  her, 
Wrapped  in  the  hopeful  Summer, 
The  starlight  round  her  head ! 


BREAK  OF  DAY 

SILENT  are  the  green  looms 
And  the  weavers  sleep, 
Nestled  in  the  piled  glooms, 
Deep  on  deep. 

Gaunt,  grim  trees  stand, 
Etched  on  space, 
Like  a  mirrored  woodland 
On  a  purple  vase. 

Faithful  in  the  dun  hour, 
Like  a  praying  priest, 
Eagerly  the  sunflower 
Scans  the  East. 

Corn  rows,  far-hurled, 
Mist-enthralled, 
Vanish  in  a  star  world, 
Sapphire-walled. 

Leaning  out  of  dim  space 
Over  field  and  town, 
99 


ioo  THE  QUEST 

Some  hushed  mother  face 
Peers,  bends  down; 

Veiled  in  gleam-blurs, 
Starry  locked, 
Brooding  o'er  the  dreamers 
Dawnward  rocked. 

Is  a  spirit  walking  ? 
On  a  sudden  seem 
All  the  sleepers  talking 
In  a  broken  dream ! 

All  along  the  corn  rows, 
O'er  the  glinting  dews, 
Hark !     A  muffled  horn  blows 
Some  wild  news ! 

Listen  !     From  a  plum-close, 
Like  a  troubled  soul, 
Tremulous  a  voice  goes  — 
'Tis  the  oriole  1 

Star-lorn,  staring, 
The  East  goes  white ! 
Is  a  Terror  faring 
Up  the  steep  of  night  ? 

Boldly,  gladly, 

Through  the  paling  hush, 


BREAK  OF  DAY  101 

Wildly,  madly, 
Cries  a  thrush ! 

Tumbled  are  the  piled  glooms 
And  the  weavers  stir : 
Once  again  the  wild  looms 
Drone  and  whir. 

Glowing  through  the  gray  rack 
Breaks  the  Day  — 
Like  a  burning  haystack 
Twenty  farms  away ! 


VI 

SONG  TO  THE   SUN 

TREADER  of  the  blue  steeps  and  the  hollows  under, 
Day-Flinger,  Hope-Singer,    crowned   with   awful 

hair; 
Battle  Lord  with  burning  sword  to  cleave  the 

gloom  asunder, 
Plunger  through  the  eyries  of  the  eagles  of  the 

Thunder, 
Stroller  up  the  flame-arched  air! 

All-Beholder,  very  swift  and  tireless  your  pace  is : 
Now  you  snuff  the  guttered  moon  above  the  gray 

abyss, 
Moaning  with  the  sagging  tide  in  shipless  ocean 

spaces; 
Now  you  gladden  windless  hollows  thronged  with 

daisy  faces ; 
Now   the    corn    salutes    the    Morn    that    sought 

Persepolis. 

Searcher  of  the  ocean  and  the  islands  and  the 
straits, 

102 


SONG  TO  THE   SUN  103 

The  mountains  and  the  rivers  and  the  deserts 

and  the  dunes, 

Saw  you  any  little  spirit  foundling  of  the  Fates, 
Groping  at  the  world-wall  for  the  narrow  gates 
Guarded  by  the  nine  big  moons  ? 

Numberless  and  endlessly  the  living  spirit   tide 

rolls, 

Like  a  serried  ocean  on  a  pleasant  island  hurled ! 
Sun-lured,  rain-wooed,  color-haunted  wild  souls 
Trooping  with  the  love-thralled,  mother-seeking 

child  souls, 
Throng  upon  the  good  green  world ! 

Surely  you  have  seen  it  in  your  wide  sky-going  — 

An  eager  little  comrade  of  the  spirits  of  the  wheat ; 

All  the  hymning  forests  and  the  melody  of  grow 
ing, 

All  the  ocean  thunderings  and  all  the  rivers  flow 
ing, 

Silenced  by  the  music  of  its  feet ! 


VII 
END  OF  SUMMER 

PURPLE  o'er  the  tree  tops 
Wild  grapes  sprawl; 
In  the  golden  silence 
Few  birds  call; 
Heavy-laden  Summer 
Ripens  into  Fall. 

Weary  with  the  seed  pods 

Droop  the  hollyhocks ; 

Up  and  down  the  wide  miles, 

Corn  in  shocks ; 

Silent  is  the  Wheat  Mother, 

And  her  merry  flocks 

Go  no  more  a-marching 
Unto  fairy  drums. 
Hark  !     Is  it  the  footfall 
Of  the  One  who  comes  ? 
Silence  —  save  the  dropping 
Of  the  purple  plums  ! 
104 


END  OF  SUMMER  105 

Patient,  stricken  Summer 
Feels  the  Odic  Fires, 
Awful  in  her  ripe  domes, 
Mystic  in  her  spires. 
In  a  holy  sadness 
Fruit  the  Spring  desires. 

Last  of  all  the  awe-moons, 
Three  times  three, 
Glimmers  down  the  sun-track 
Slenderly  — 
Omen  of  the  Wonder 
Soon  to  be. 

Does  the  darkness  listen 
For  a  shout  of  Doom  ? 
Hist !     Was  it  a  thin  voice 
Crying  from  a  womb  ? 
Silence  —  save  a  dry  leaf's 
Whisper  down  the  gloom. 


VIII 
HYMN  BEFORE   BIRTH 

SOON  shall  you  come  as  the  dawn  from  the  dumb 
abysm  of  night, 

Traveller  birthward,  Hastener  earthward  out  of 
the  gloom ! 

Soon  shall  you  rest  on  a  soft  white  breast  from  the 
measureless  mid-world  flight; 

Waken  in  fear  at  the  miracle,  light,  in  the  pain- 
hushed  room. 

Lovingly    fondled,    fearfully   guarded    by    hands 

that  are  tender, 
Frail  shall  you  seem  as  a  dream  that  must  fail  in 

the  swirl  of  the  morrow : 
Oh,  but  the  vast,  immemorial  past  of  ineffable 

splendor, 
Forfeited  soon  in  the  pangful  surrender  to  Sense 

and  to  Sorrow ! 

Who  shall  unravel  your  tangle  of  travel,  uncur 
tain  your  history  ? 

Have  you  not  run  with  the  sun-gladdened  feet  of  a 
thaw  ? 

106 


HYMN  BEFORE  BIRTH  107 

Lurked  as  a  thrill  in  the  will  of  the  primal  sea- 
mystery, 

The  drift  of  the  cloud  and  the  lift  of  the  moon  for  a 
law  ? 

Lost  is  the  tale  of  the  gulfs  you  have  crossed  and 
the  veils  you  have  lifted  : 

In  many  a  tongue  have  been  wrung  from  you  out 
cries  of  pain : 

You  have  leaped  with  the  lightning  from  thunder- 
heads,  hurricane-rifted, 

And  breathed  in  the  whispering  rain ! 

Latent  in  juices  the  April  sun  looses  from  capture, 

Have  you  not  blown  in  the  lily  and  grown  in  the 
weed  ? 

Burned  with  the  flame  of  the  vernal  erotical  rap 
ture, 

And  yearned  with  the  passion  for  seed  ? 

Poured  on  the  deeps  from  the  steeps  of  the  sky  as  a 
chalice, 

Flung  through  the  loom  that  is  shuttled  by  temp 
ests  at  play, 

Myriad  the  forms  you  have  taken  for  hovel  or 
palace  — 

Broken  and  cast  them  away ! 


io8  THE  QUEST 

You  who  shall  cling  to  a  love  that  is  fearful  and 
pities, 

Titans  of  flame  were  your  comrades  to  blight  and 
consume ! 

Have  you  not  roared  over  song-hallowed,  sword- 
stricken  cities, 

And  fled  in  the  smoke  of  their  doom  ? 

For,  ancient  and  new,  you  are  flame,  you  are  dust, 

you  are  spirit  and  dew, 
Swirled  into  flesh,  and  the  winds  of  the  world  are 

your  breath ! 
The  song  of  a  thrush  in  the  hush  of  the  dawn  is  not 

younger  than  you  — 
And  yet  you  are  older  than  death ! 


IX 

TRIUMPH 

SEE  how  the  blue-girt  hills  are  spread 

With  regal  cloth  of  gold ; 

How,  panoplied  in  haughty  red, 

The  frosted  maples  stand ; 

The  golden-rod,  with  torch  alight, 

Makes  glory  up  the  wold  — 

As  though  a  monarch's  bannered  might 

Were  marching  up  the  land  ! 

Now  should  ecstatic  bugles  fret 

The  hush,  and  drums  should  roll ; 

The  shawms  of  all  the  breezes  set 

The  scarlet  leaves  a-dance ! 

And  now  should  flash  in  vatic  rhyme 

The  battles  of  the  Soul  — 

To  welcome  to  the  realm  of  Time 

The  Vanquisher  of  Chance ! 

For,  though  there  rolls  no  gilded  car 
That  spurns  the  shaken  earth, 
And  shout  no  captains,  flinging  far 
The  law  to  parlous  spears ; 
109 


I  io  THE  QUEST 

With  throbbing  hearts  for  smitten  drums, 
Up  through  the  Gates  of  Birth  — 
The  Victor  comes  !    The  Victor  comes  ! 
To  claim  the  ripened  years ! 


X 
THE  CHILD'S  HERITAGE 

OH,  there  are  those,  a  sordid  clan, 
With  pride  in  gaud  and  faith  in  gold, 
Who  prize  the  sacred  soul  of  man 
For  what  his  hands  have  sold. 

And  these  shall  deem  thee  humbly  bred 
They  shall  not  hear,  they  shall  not  see 
The  kings  among  the  lordly  dead 
Who  walk  and  talk  with  thee ! 

A  tattered  cloak  may  be  thy  dole 
And  thine  the  roof  that  Jesus  had  : 
The  broidered  garment  of  the  soul 
Shall  keep  thee  purple-clad ! 

The  blood  of  men  hath  dyed  its  brede, 
And  it  was  wrought  by  holy  seers 
With  sombre  dream  and  golden  deed 
And  pearled  with  women's  tears. 

With  Eld  thy  chain  of  days  is  one : 
The  seas  are  still  Homeric  seas ; 
in 


ii2  THE  QUEST 

Thy  sky  shall  glow  with  Pindar's  sun, 
The  stars  of  Socrates  ! 

Unaged  the  ancient  tide  shall  surge, 
The  old  Spring  burn  along  the  bough : 
The  new  and  old  for  thee  converge 
In  one  eternal  Now ! 

I  give  thy  feet  the  hopeful  sod, 

Thy  mouth,  the  priceless  boon  of  breath; 

The  glory  of  the  search  for  God 

Be  thine  in  life  and  death ! 

Unto  thy  flesh,  the  soothing  dust ; 
Thy  soul,  the  gift  of  being  free : 
The  torch  my  fathers  gave  in  trust, 
Thy  father  gives  to  thee ! 


XI 
LULLABY 

SUN-FLOOD,  moon-gleam 
Ebb  and  flow; 
Twinkle-footed  star  flocks 
Come  and  go : 
Eager  little  Stranger, 
Sleep  and  grow ! 

Yearning  in  the  moon-lift 
Surge  the  seas ; 
Southering,  the  sun-lured 
Gray  goose  flees : 
Eager  with  the  same  urge, 
You  and  these ! 

Canopied  in  splendor  — 
Red,  gold,  blue  — 
With  the  tender  Autumn 
Cooing  through ; 
Oh,  the  mighty  cradle 
Rocking  you ! 

113 


THE  POET'S  TOWN 


THE  POET'S  TOWN 

I 

'Mm  glad  green  miles  of  tillage 
And  fields  where  cattle  graze, 
A  prosy  little  village, 
You  drowse  away  the  days. 

And  yet  —  a  wakeful  glory 
Clings  round  you  as  you  doze; 
One  living  lyric  story 
Makes  music  of  your  prose. 

Here  once,  returning  never, 
The  feet  of  Song  have  trod ; 
And  flashed  —  Oh,  once  forever ! 
The  singing  Flame  of  God. 

II 

These  were  his  fields  Elysian  : 
With  mystic  eyes  he  saw 
The  sowers  planting  vision, 
The  reapers  gleaning  awe. 
117 


n8  THE  QUEST 

Serfs  to  a  sordid  duty, 
He  saw  them  with  his  heart, 
Priests  of  the  Ultimate  Beauty, 
Feeding  the  flame  of  art. 

The  weird,  untempled  Makers 
Pulsed  in  the  things  he  saw; 
The  wheat  through  its  virile  acres 
Billowed  the  Song  of  Law. 

The  epic  roll  of  the  furrow 

Flung  from  the  writing  plow, 

The  dactyl  phrase  of  the  green-rowed  maize 

Measured  the  music  of  Now. 

Ill 

Sipper  of  ancient  flagons, 
Often  the  lonesome  boy 
Saw  in  the  farmer's  wagons 
The  chariots  hurled  at  Troy. 

Trundling  in  dust  and  thunder 
They  rumbled  up  and  down, 
Laden  with  princely  plunder, 
Loot  of  the  tragic  Town. 

And  once  when  the  rich  man's  daughter 
Smiled  on  the  boy  at  play, 


THE  POET'S  TOWN  119 

Sword-storms,  giddy  with  slaughter, 
Swept  back  the  ancient  day ! 

War  steeds  shrieked  in  the  quiet, 
Far  and  hoarse  were  the  cries ; 
And  Oh,  through  the  din  and  the  riot, 
The  music  of  Helen's  eyes  ! 

Stabbed  with  the  olden  Sorrow, 
He  slunk  away  from  the  play, 
For  the  Past  and  the  vast  To-morrow 
Were  wedded  in  his  To-day. 

IV 

Rich  with  the  dreamer's  pillage, 
An  idle  and  worthless  lad, 
Least  in  a  prosy  village, 
And  prince  in  Allahabad ; 

Lover  of  golden  apples, 
Munching  a  daily  crust; 
Haunter  of  dream-built  chapels, 
Worshipping  in  the  dust; 

Dull  to  the  worldly  duty, 
Less  to  the  town  he  grew, 
And  more  to  the  God  of  Beauty 
Than  even  the  grocer  knew ! 


120  THE  QUEST 


Corn  for  the  buyers,  and  cattle  — 
But  what  could  the  dreamer  sell  ? 
Echoes  of  cloudy  battle  ? 
Music  from  heaven  and  hell  ? 

Spices  and  bales  of  plunder, 
Argosied  over  the  sea  ? 
Tapestry  woven  of  wonder, 
Any  myrrh  from  Araby  ? 

None  of  your  dream-stuffs,  Fellow, 

Looter  of  Samarcand  ! 

Gold  is  heavy  and  yellow, 

And  value  is  weighed  in  the  hand ! 

VI 

And  yet,  when  the  years  had  humbled 
The  kings  in  the  Realm  of  the  Boy, 
Song-built  bastions  crumbled, 
Ash-heaps  smothering  Troy; 

Thirsting  for  shattered  flagons, 
Quaffing  a  brackish  cup, 
With  all  of  his  chariots,  wagons  — 
He  never  could  quite  grow  up. 

The  debt  to  the  ogre,  To-morrow, 
He  never  could  comprehend  : 


THE  POET'S  TOWN  121 

Why  should  the  borrowers  borrow  ? 
Why  should  the  lenders  lend  ? 

Never  an  oak  tree  borrowed, 
But  took  for  its  needs  —  and  gave. 
Never  an  oak  tree  sorrowed ; 
Debt  was  the  mark  of  the  slave. 

Grass  in  the  priceless  weather 

Sucked  from  the  paps  of  the  Earth, 

And  hills  that  were  lean  it  fleshed  with  its  green  — 

Oh,  what  is  a  lesson  worth  ? 

But  still  did  the  buyers  barter 
And  the  sellers  squint  at  the  scales ; 
And  price  was  the  stake  of  the  martyr, 
And  cost  was  the  lock  of  the  jails. 

VII 

Windflowers  herald  the  Maytide, 
Rendering  worth  for  worth ; 
Ragweeds  gladden  the  wayside, 
Biting  the  dugs  of  the  Earth ; 

Violets,  scattering  glories, 

Feed  from  the  dewy  gem : 

But  poets  are  fed  by  the  living  and  dead  — 

And  what  is  the  gift  from  them  ? 


122  THE  QUEST 

VIII 

Never  a  stalk  of  the  Summer 
Dreams  of  its  mission  and  doom : 
Only  to  hasten  the  Comer  — 
Martyrdom  unto  the  Bloom. 

Ever  the  Mighty  Chooser 
Plucks  when  the  fruit  is  ripe, 
Scorning  the  mass  and  letting  it  pass, 
Keen  for  the  cryptic  type. 

Greece  in  her  growing  season 

Troubled  the  lands  and  seas, 

Plotted  and  fought  and  suffered  and  wrought 

Building  a  Sophocles ! 

Only  a  faultless  temple 

Stands  for  the  vassal's  groan ; 

The  harlot's  strife  and  the  faith  of  the  wife 

Blend  in  a  shapen  stone. 

Ne'er  do  the  stern  gods  cherish 
The  hope  of  the  million  lives; 
Always  the  Fact  shall  perish 
And  only  the  Truth  survives. 

Gardens  of  roses  wither, 
Shaping  the  perfect  rose; 


THE  POET'S  TOWN  123 

And  the  poet's  song  shall  live  for  the  long, 
Dumb,  aching  years  of  prose. 

IX 

King  of  a  Realm  of  Magic, 
He  was  the  fool  of  the  town, 
Hiding  the  ache  of  the  tragic 
Under  the  grin  of  the  clown. 

Worn  with  the  vain  endeavor 
To  fit  in  the  sordid  plan ; 
Doomed  to  be  poet  forever, 
He  longed  to  be  only  a  man ; 

To  be  freed  from  the  god's  enthralling, 
Back  with  the  reeds  of  the  stream ; 
Deaf  to  the  Vision  calling, 
And  dead  to  the  lash  of  the  Dream. 


But  still  did  the  Mighty  Makers 
Stir  in  the  common  sod ; 
The  corn  through  its  awful  acres 
Trembled  and  thrilled  with  God  ! 

More  than  a  man  was  the  sower, 
Lured  by  a  man's  desire, 
For  a  triune  Bride  walked  close  at  his  side 
Dew  and  Dust  and  Fire ! 


124  THE  QUEST 

More  than  a  man  was  the  plowman, 
Shouting  his  gee  and  haw; 
For  a  something  dim  kept  pace  with  him, 
And  ever  the  poet  saw; 

Till  the  winds  of  the  cosmic  struggle 
Made  of  his  flesh  a  flute, 
To  echo  the  tune  of  a  whirlwind  rune 
Unto  the  million  mute. 

XI 

Son  of  the  Mother  of  mothers, 
The  womb  and  the  tomb  of  Life, 
With  Fire  and  Air  for  brothers 
And  a  clinging  Dream  for  a  wife ; 

Ever  the  soul  of  the  dreamer 

Strove  with  its  mortal  mesh, 

And  the  lean  flame  grew  till  it  fretted  through 

The  last  thin  links  of  flesh. 

Oh,  rending  the  veil  asunder, 
He  fled  to  mingle  again 
With  the  dread  Orestean  thunder, 
The  Lear  of  the  driven  rain  ! 

XII 

Once  in  a  cycle  the  comet 
Doubles  its  lonesome  track. 


THE  POET'S  TOWN  125 

Enriched  with  the  tears  of  a  thousand  years, 
^Eschylus  wanders  back. 

Ever  inweaving,  returning, 

The  near  grows  out  of  the  far ; 

And  Homer  shall  sing  once  more  in  a  swing 

Of  the  austere  Polar  Star. 

Then  what  of  the  lonesome  dreamer 
With  the  lean  blue  flame  in  his  breast  ? 
And  who  was  your  clown  for  a  day,  O  Town, 
The  strange,  unbidden  guest  ? 

XIII 

9 Mid  glad  green  miles  of  tillage 
And  fields  where  cattle  graze, 
A  prosy  little  village, 
You  drowse  away  the  days. 

And  yet  —  a  wakeful  glory 
Clings  round  you  as  you  doze; 
One  living,  lyric  story 
Makes  music  of  your  prose  ! 


THE  POET'S  ADVICE 

I 

You  wish  to  be  a  poet,  Little  Man  ? 
More  verses  limping  'neath  their  big  intent  ? 
Well  —  one  must  be  a  poet  if  one  can  ! 
But  do  you  know  the  way  the  others  went  ? 

Who  buys  of  gods  must  pay  a  heavy  fee. 
The  world  loves  not  its  dreamers  overmuch : 
And  he  who  longs  to  drink  at  Castaly, 
Must  hobble  there  upon  a  broken  crutch. 

One  sins  by  being  different,  it  seems ; 
At  least  so  in  our  human  commonweal. 
Who  goes  to  market  with  his  minted  dreams, 
Must  buy  and  bear  the  Cross  of  the  Ideal. 

Lo,  tall  amid  the  forest,  blackened,  grim, 
The  lightning-riven  pine  !  —  God-kissed  was  he. 
How  all  the  little  beeches  jeer  at  him, 
Safe  in  their  snug  arrays  of  greenery ! 

And  who  shall  call  the  little  beeches  mad  ? 
Not  I,  who  know  how  big  are  little  acts. 
Want  what  you  have,  and  cherish,  O  my  Lad, 
The  downright,  foursquare,  geometric  facts ! 
126 


THE  POET'S  ADVICE  127 

II 

But  —  Oh,  the  ancient  glory  in  your  eyes  ! 
How  bursts  a  dazzling  wonder  all  around  ! 
Wild  tempests  of  ineffable  surprise  — 
All  color,  dream  and  sound  ! 

You  lip  the  awful  flagons  of  old  time, 
And  mystic  apples  lure  you  to  the  bite ! 
Blown  down  the  dizzy  winds  of  woven  rhyme, 
Dead  women  come  and  woo  you  in  the  night ! 

You  tread  the  myrtle  woods  past  time  and  place, 
Where  shadows  flit  and  ghostly  echoes  croon; 
And  through  the  boughs  some  fatal  storied  face 
Breathes  muted  music  like  a  Summer  moon ! 

I  know  the  secret  altars  where  you  kneel. 
I  know  what  lips  fling  fever  in  your  kiss. 
That  sorry  little  drab  to  whom  you  steal 
Is  Queen  Semiramis ! 

The  Bacchanalia  of  the  sap  now  reigns ! 
Priapic  fires  burn  yonder  bough  with  blooms ! 
Lo,  goat-songs  warbled  from  the  vineyard  fanes ! 
Lo,  Venus-nipples  in  the  apple-glooms ! 

Ah,  who  is  older  than  the  vernal  surge, 
And  who  is  wiser  than  the  sap  a-thrill  ? 


128  THE  QUEST 

Forever,  he  who  feels  the  lyric  urge 
Shall  do  its  will ! 

Your  rhymes  ?  —  Some  nimbler  footed  have  been 

worse. 

What  broken  trumpet  echoes  from  the  van 
Where  march  the  cohorts  of  Immortal  Verse ! 
Well  —  one  must  be  a  poet  if  one  can. 


HARK  THE  MUSIC 

HARK,  the  music  calling ! 
From  the  earth  it  grows, 
From  the  sky  'tis  falling, 
In  the  wind  it  blows ! 

Silver-noted  star-gleams 
Through  the  moony  glooms ; 
Golden-noted  sunbeams 
Wooing  cherry  blooms ! 

Flying-fingered  Winds  smite 
Throbbing  strings  of  rain ; 
Through  the  misty  midnight 
Moans  the  Growing  Pain  ! 

Cradle-buds  are  shaken 
By  a  hand  they  know : 
Brother,  Sister,  waken  — 
'Tis  the  time  to  grow ! 


129 


V 


APRIL  THE  MAIDEN 

LONGINGS  to  grow  and  be  vaster, 
Sap  songs  under  the  blue; 
Hints  of  the  Mighty  Master 
Making  his  dream  come  true. 

Sensing  the  northbound  Wonder 
Arrows  of  wild  geese  flee ; 
Bursting  its  bonds  with  thunder, 
The  river  yearns  to  the  sea. 

Gaunt  limbs,  winter-scarred,  tragic, 
Blind  seeds  under  the  mold, 
Planning  new  marvels  of  magic 
In  scarlet  and  green  and  gold ! 

Oh  passionate,  panting,  love-laden, 
She  is  coming,  she  sings  in  the  South  — 
The  World's  Bride  —  April  the  Maiden  - 
With  the  ghost  of  a  rose  for  a  mouth ! 


130 


APRIL  THEOLOGY 

OH  to  be  breathing  and  hearing  and  feeling  and 

seeing ! 

Oh  the  ineffably  glorious  privilege  of  being ! 
All  of  the  World's  lovely  girlhood,  unfleshed  and 

made  spirit, 
Broods  out  in  the  sunlight  this  morning  —  I  see  it, 

I  hear  it ! 

So  read  me  no  text,  0  my  Brothers,  and  preach 
me  no  creeds ; 

I  am  busy  beholding  the  glory  of  God  in  His  deeds  ! 

See!  Everywhere  buds  coming  out,  blossoms 
flaming,  bees  humming ! 

Glad  athletic  growers  up-reaching,  things  striv 
ing,  becoming ! 

Oh,  I  know  in  my  heart,  in  the  sun-quickened, 

blossoming  soul  of  me, 
This  something  called  self  is  a  part,  but  the  world 

is  the  whole  of  me  ! 
I  am  one  with  these  growers,  these  singers,  these 

earnest  becomers  — 
Co-heirs  of  the  summer  to  be  and  past  aeons  of 

summers ! 

131 


132  THE  QUEST 

I  kneel  not  nor  grovel;    no  prayer  with  my  lips 

shall  I  fashion. 
Close-knit  in  the  fabric  of  things,  fused  with  one 

common  passion  — 
To  go  on  and  become  something  greater  —  we 

growers  are  one ; 
None  more  in  the  world  than  a  bird  and  none  less 

than  the  sun ; 

But  all  woven  into  the  glad  indivisible  Scheme, 
God  fashioning  out  in  the  Finite  a  part  of  his  dream ! 

Out  here  where  the  world-love  is  flowing,  un 
fettered,  unpriced, 

I  feel  all  the  depth  of  the  man-soul  and  girl-heart 
of  Christ ! 

'Mid  this  riot  of  pink  and  white  flame  in  this 
miracle  weather, 

Soul  to  soul,  merged  in  one,  God  and  I  dream  the 
vast  dream  together. 

We  are  one  in  the  doing  of  things  that  are  done 
and  to  be : 

I  am  part  of  my  God  as  a  raindrop  is  part  of  the 
sea! 

What !     House  me  my  God  ?     Take  me  in  where 

no  blossoms  are  blowing  ? 
Roof  me  in  from  the  blue,  wall  me  in  from  the 

green  and  the  wonder  of  growing  ? 


APRIL  THEOLOGY  133 

Parcel  out  what  is  already  mine,  like  a  vender  of 
staples  ? 

See!  Yonder  my  God  burns  revealed  in  the  sap- 
drunken  maples! 


MORNING-GLORIES 

DISTANT  as  a  dream's  flight 
Lay  an  eerie  plain, 
Where  the  weary  moonlight 
Swooned  into  a  moan ; 
Wailing  after  dead  seed, 
Came  the  ghost  of  rain ; 
There  was  I  a  wild  weed 
Growing  all  alone. 

Like  a  doubted  story 
Came  the  thought  of  day; 
God  and  all  his  glory 
Lingered  otherwhere, 
Busy  with  the  dawn-thrill 
Many  dreams  away. 
Could  a  little  weed's  will 
Fling  so  far  a  prayer  ? 

Oh,  the  sudden  wonder ! 
(Is  a  prayer  so  fleet  ?) 
From  the  desert  under, 
Morning-glories  grew ! 
134 


MORNING-GLORIES  135 

Twined  me,  bound  me 
With  caressing  feet ! 
Wove  song  round  me  — 
Pink,  white,  blue ! 

As  a  fog  is  rifted 
By  the  eager  breeze, 
Darkness  broke  and  lifted, 
Tossing  like  a  sea  ! 
Lo,  the  dawn  was  flowering 
Through  the  maple  trees  ! 
Oh  —  and  you  were  showering 
Kisses  over  me ! 


INVITATIONS 
I 

OH  come  with  me  and  through  my  gardens  run, 
And  we  shall  pluck  strange  flowers  that  love  the 

sun, 

Of  which  the  sap  is  blood,  the  petals  flame, 
The  sweet,  forbidden  blossoms  of  no  name ! 
Oh  splendid  are  my  gardens  walled  with  night, 
Dim-torched  with  stars  and  secret  for  delight; 
And   winds   breathe   there   the   lure  of  smitten 

strings, 

Vocal  of  the  immensity  of  things  ! 
Come,  Wailer  out  of  Nothing,  nowhere  hurled, 
Frustrate  the  bitter  purpose  of  the  World  ! 
Thou  shalt  drink  deep  of  all  delights  that  be  — 
So  come  with  me ! 

II 

I  have  a  secret  garden  where  sacred  lilies  lift 
White  faces  kind  with  pardon,  to  hear  my  shrift. 
And  all  blood-riot  falters  before  those  faces  there ; 
Bowed  down  at  quiet  altars,  my  hours  are  monks 
at  prayer. 

136 


INVITATIONS  137 

There  through  my  spirit  kneeling  the  silence 
thrills  and  sings 

The  cosmic  brother  feeling  of  growing,  hopeful 
things : 

Old  soothing  Earth  a  mother;  a  sire  the  shield 
ing  Blue; 

The  Sun  a  mighty  brother  —  and  God  is  in  the 
dew. 

Oh  Garden  hushed  and  splendid  with  lily,  star 
and  tree ! 

There  all  vain  dreams  are  ended  —  so  come  with 
me! 


I 

AND  THE  LITTLE  WIND  — 

SAID  a  rose  amid  the  June  night  to  a  little  wind 
there  walking 

(And  the  whisper  of  the  moonlight  was  no  fainter 
than  its  talking)  : 

"It   is    plainly   providential,"    so   remarked   the 
garden  Tory, 

"That  the  ultimate  essential  is  the  gentle  rose's 
glory. 

Let  the  sordid  delvers  cavil !     Through  the  world- 
fog  sinking  seaward 

And  the  planetary  travail  God  was  slowly  groping 
me-ward. 

Weary  ages  of  designing,  aeons  of  creative  throes 

Spent  the  Master  in  refining  sullen  chaos  to  a  rose  ! 

Shall  He  robe  His  chosen  meanly  ?     Look  upon 
me;   am  I  splendid  ?" 

Here  she  stood  erect  and  queenly,  curled  a  lip  and 
ended. 

And  the  little  wind  there  walking,  not  desirous  of 
dissension, 

In  a  gust  of  cryptic  talking  freely  granted  the  con 
tention. 

138 


AND  THE  LITTLE  WIND—  139 

Like  the  murmur  of  a  far  stream  or  a  zephyr  in  the 
sedges, 

Scarcely  louder  than  the  star-gleam  raining  silver 
on  the  hedges, 

Came  a  whisper  from  the  humus  where  the  roots 
were  toiling  blindly : 

"They  enslave  us,  they  entomb  us!  Is  it  just 
and  is  it  kindly  ? 

Ours,  forever  ours,  to  nourish  —  oh,  the  drear, 
eternal  duty !  — 

That  the  idle  rose  may  flourish  in  aristocratic 
beauty. 

Not  for  us  the  wooing,  tender  moon  emerges  from 
the  far  night ; 

Not  for  us  the  morning  splendor  and  the  witchery 
of  starlight ; 

Not  for  us  the  dulcet  cantion  of  the  rain  to  throb 
bing  lutes ; 

And  there's  no  cerulean  mansion  for  the  roots." 

Now  the  little  wind,  demurely  sympathetic,  cogi 
tated, 

And  declared  the  matter  surely  ought  to  be  inves 
tigated. 

"Fie !"  observed  the  fair  patrician,  "on  their  silly 

martyr  poses ! 
Not  content  with  their  condition,  always  wanting 

to  be  roses !" 


140  THE  QUEST 

Whereupon  a  theophanic,  superlunar  phosphor 
escence 

Flung  the  haughty  into  panic,  awed  the  humble 
to  quiescence. 

'Twas  the  Vintner  of  the  June-wine  on  his  world 
wide,  endless  vagrance; 

And  he  spoke  the  tongue  of  moonshine  in  the 
dialect  of  fragrance : 

"  Brother,  Sister,  softly,  softly !  Glooming,  gleam 
ing  though  the  way  be, 

Who  is  low  and  who  is  lofty  in  the  scheme  of  what 
you  may  be  ? 

Pride  and  plaint  are  irreligious.  Root  and 
blossom,  lo !  you  plod 

Upward  to  some  far,  prodigious  rose  of  God  !" 

And  the  little  wind,  though  slyly  sleeping  out  the 
time  of  talking, 

Woke  to  praise  the  sermon  highly,  and  continued 
with  his  walking. 


PRAIRIE  STORM  RUNE 

I 

THE  wild  bee  sips  at  the  heat-drugged  lips 

Of  the  passionless  lily  a-nod ; 

The  sunflowers  stare  through  the  hush  at  the  glare 

Of  the  face  of  their  tutelar  god,  and  the  hair 

Of  the  gossamer  glints  in  the  listless  air. 

Ragged  and  grim  on  the  parched  hill-rim, 
The  cottonwoods  sulk  in  gray : 
The  guiding  word  of  the  plowman  is  heard 
A  dream-thralled  mile  away  —  half  blurred, 
Wounding  the  calm  as  a  blunted  sword. 

Prophecy's  minister,  dolorous,  sinister, 
Hark  to  the  rain  crow !     Incredible  story ! 
For  the  clouds  of  fleece  like  banners  in  peace 
Pine  for  the  winds  of  glory.     Cease, 
Chanter  of  storm  in  the  ancient  peace ! 

The  sick  land  lies  as  a  man  ere  he  dies, 
Loosing  his  grip  in  a  hush  profound ; 
Save  when  the  hidden  insects  scream 
In  jets  of  watery  sound  that  seem 
Taunts  of  thirst  in  a  fever  dream. 


142  THE  QUEST 

II 

What  mean  yon  cries  where  the  flat  world  dies 

In  hazy  rotundity  — 

Tumult  a-swoon,  silence  a-croon, 

Lapped  in  profundity  —  bane  or  boon 

Or  only  the  drone  of  a  fever  rune  ? 

No  bird  sings  —  but  a  grasshopper's  wings 
Snap  in  the  meadow. 

On  the  rim  of  the  hill  the  cottonwoods  spill 
Stagnant  puddles  of  shadow;   and  still  — 
The  air  is  quick  with  a  subtle  thrill ! 

A  cool  fresh  pufF !     The  meadows  are  rough, 
The  cottonwoods  whiten  and  whisper  together ! 
The  plowman  at  gaze,  knee-deep  in  the  maize, 
Judges  the  weather.     A  plow  horse  neighs, 
Faint  and  clear  as  a  horn  of  the  fays. 

Haunting  the  distance  with  taunting  insistence, 
Fiery  portents  and  mumblings  of  wonder ! 
In  gardens  of  gloom,  walled  steep  with  doom, 
Strange  blue  buds  burst  in  thunder,  and  bloom 
Dizzily,  vividly,  gaudily,  lividly  — 
Death-flowers  sown  in  a  cannon-gloom ! 

Ill 

Lo,  on  a  height  hewn  sheer  out  of  night, 
Where  Mystery  labors, 


PRAIRIE  STORM  RUNE  143 

Through  the  Hadean  heath  from  an  awe  beneath, 
A  sprouting  of  sabres  lean  from  the  sheath ! 
And  bursting  the  husk  of  the  travailing  dusk, 
The  world-old  crop  of  the  dragon's  teeth  ! 

Banners  of  battle-might,  spear-glint  and  sword- 
light 

Over  the  dream-vague,  frowning  battalions ! 

Hark,  the  hoarse  trumpets  bray !  Sensing  the 
coming  fray, 

Wraith-ridden,  thunder-hoofed  stallions  neigh 

Terror  into  the  glooming  day  ! 

A  death-hush  falls.     The  shadow  sprawls 
Sick  in  the  failing  noon. 
The  sun  flies  shorn,  aghast,  forlorn, 
Like  a  spectral  moon  surprised  at  morn. 
Deathly  green  is  the  meadow-sheen, 
Ghastly  green  the  corn. 

IV 

Hark  —  at  last  —  the  burst  of  the  blast  — 
The  roar  of  the  charge  and  howls  of  defiance  ! 
The  cottonwoods,  grim  on  the  bleared  hill-rim, 
Grapple  with  giants  weird  and  dim  — 
Titan  torses,  pedisonant  horses  — 
Gods  and  demons  and  seraphim ! 


144  THE  QUEST 

Bloody  light  from  the  sword-slashed  night  — 
Shuddering  darkness  after ! 
Terrible  feet  trample  the  wheat ! 
Olympian  laughter  overhead ! 
Over  the  roofs  rumble  the  hoofs, 
Over  the  graves  of  the  dead  ! 

And  yet  —  somewhere  through  the  crystal  air 
A  golden  rain  is  swelling  the  oats, 
And  wild  doves  croon  to  the  splendid  noon 
Of  love  too  big  for  their  throats ;   and  there 
Never  the  beat  of  terrible  feet  — 
Somehow,  somewhere. 

Stark  in  the  rain  like  a  face  of  the  slain 

The  gray  land  stares  in  the  fitful  light. 

Is  it  a  glimmer  of  some  vague  story  — 

The  corn's  green  might,  the  wheatfield's  shimmer, 

The  sunflower's  glory  ? 


The  war  wind  fails.     A  gray  cloud  trails 
Over  the  sodden  plain. 
Swift  and  bright,  the  arrowy  light 
Smites  the  rear  of  the  Rain  in  flight ! 
And  lo,  on  high,  spanning  the  sky, 
The  arch  of  a  Victor's  might ! 


PRAIRIE  STORM  RUNE  145 

Nothing  is  heard  .  .  .  Hark  !  —  a  bird 
Calls  from  a  green-gloomed,  dripping  cover ! 
Surely  wrath  rode  not  in  the  blast, 
But  some  inscrutable  Lover  passed, 
Aflame  with  the  lust  of  the  Dew  for  the  Dust, 
Out  of  the  Vast  into  the  Vast. 

The  wild  bee  slips  from  the  housing  lips 

Of  the  lily  a-nod. 

Odors  sweet  in  the  humid  heat ! 

A  glimmer  of  God  athwart  the  wheat ! 

Aglow  with  prayer,  the  sunflowers  stare 

At  the  face  of  their  Paraclete. 


PRAYER  FOR   PAIN 

I  DO  not  pray  for  peace  nor  ease, 
Nor  truce  from  sorrow  : 
No  suppliant  on  servile  knees 
Begs  here  against  to-morrow ! 

Lean  flame  against  lean  flame  we  flash, 
O  Fates  that  meet  me  fair ; 
Blue  steel  against  blue  steel  we  clash  — 
Lay  on,  and  I  shall  dare ! 

But  Thou  of  deeps  the  awful  Deep, 
Thou  breather  in  the  clay, 
Grant  this  my  only  prayer  —  Oh  keep 
My  soul  from  turning  gray ! 

For  until  now,  whatever  wrought 
Against  my  sweet  desires, 
My  days  were  smitten  harps  strung  taut, 
My  nights  were  slumbrous  lyres. 

And  howsoe'er  the  hard  blow  rang 
Upon  my  battered  shield, 
Some  lark-like,  soaring  spirit  sang 
Above  my  battle-field ; 
146 


PRAYER  FOR  PAIN  147 

And  through  my  soul  of  stormy  night 
The  zigzag  blue  flame  ran. 
I  asked  no  odds  —  I  fought  my  fight  — 
Events  against  a  man. 

But  now  —  at  last  —  the  gray  mist  chokes 
And  numbs  me.     Leave  me  pain! 
Oh  let  me  feel  the  biting  strokes 
That  I  may  fight  again  I  .*, 


BATTLE-CRY 

MORE  than  half  beaten,  but  fearless, 
Facing  the  storm  and  the  night; 
Breathless  and  reeling,  but  tearless, 
Here  in  the  lull  of  the  fight, 
I  who  bow  not  but  before  Thee, 
God  of  the  fighting  Clan, 
Lifting  my  fists  I  implore  Thee, 
Give  me  the  heart  of  a  Man ! 

What  though  I  live  with  the  winners 

Or  perish  with  those  who  fall  ? 

Only  the  cowards  are  sinners, 

Fighting  the  fight  is  all. 

Strong  is  my  Foe  —  he  advances  I 

Snapt  is  my  blade,  O  Lord  1 

See  the  proud  banners  and  lances ! 

Oh  spare  me  this  stub  of  a  sword ! 

Give  me  no  pity,  nor  spare  me ; 
Calm  not  the  wrath  of  my  Foe. 
See  where  he  beckons  to  dare  me ! 
Bleeding,  half  beaten  —  I  go. 
148 


BATTLE-CRY  149 

Not  for  the  glory  of  winning, 
Not  for  the  fear  of  the  night ; 
Shunning  the  battle  is  sinning  — 
Oh  spare  me  the  heart  to  fight ! 

Red  is  the  mist  about  me; 
Deep  is  the  wound  in  my  side; 
'Coward'  thou  criest  to  flout  me  ? 
O  terrible  Foe,  thou  hast  lied  ! 
Here  with  my  battle  before  me, 
God  of  the  fighting  clan, 
Grant  that  the  woman  who  bore  me 
Suffered  to  suckle  a  man  ! 


THE  LYRIC 

GIVE  the  good  gaunt  horse  the  rein, 

Sting  him  with  the  steel ! 

Set  his  nervous  thews  a-strain, 

Let  him  feel  the  winner's  pain, 

Master-hand  and  -heel ! 

Fling  him,  hurl  him  at  the  wire 

Though  he  sob  and  bleed ! 

Play  upon  him  as  a  lyre  — 

Speed  is  music  set  on  fire  — 

Oh,  the  mighty  steed  ! 

Hurl  the  lyric  swift  and  true 

Like  a  shaft  of  Doom  ! 

Like  the  lightning's  blade  of  blue 

Letting  all  the  heavens  through, 

And  shuddering  back  to  gloom ! 

Like  the  sudden  river-thaw, 

Like  a  sabred  throng, 

Give  it  fury  clothed  in  awe  — 

Speed  is  half  the  lyric  law  — 

Oh,  the  mighty  song  ! 

150 


LONESOME  IN  TOWN 

THE  long  day  wanes,  the  fog  shuts  down, 
The  eave-trough  spouts  and  sputters ; 
The  rain  sighs  through  the  huddled  town 
And  mumbles  in  the  gutters. 

The  emptied  thoroughfares  become 
Long  streams  of  eerie  light ; 
They  issue  from  the  mist  and,  dumb, 
Flow  onward  out  of  sight. 

A  crowded  street-car  grumbles  past, 
Its  snapping  trolley  glows ; 
Again  where  yon  pale  light  is  cast 
The  hackman's  horses  doze. 

In  vain  the  bargain  windows  wink, 
The  passers-by  are  few : 
The  grim  walls  stretch  away  and  shrink 
In  dull  electric  blue. 

A  stranger  hurries  down  the  street, 
Hat  dripping,  face  aglow : 

0  happy  feet,  O  homing  feet, 

1  know  where  mine  would  go ! 


152  THE  QUEST 

Far  oh,  far  over  hills  and  dells 

The  cows  come  up  the  lane, 

With  steaming  flanks  and  fog-dulled  bells 

A-tinkle  in  the  rain. 


MONEY 

A  SON  of  Adam  dug  beside  the  way. 
"Why  Brother,  do  you  dig  ?"     I  stopped  to  ask. 
Standing  at  stoop  and  pausing  in  his  task, 
From  dreary  eyes  he  wiped  the  sweat  away. 
"I  work  for  money."     "What  is  money,  pray  ?" 
"A  foolish  question,  this  you  come  to  ask !" 
Yet  in  that  gray  and  worry-haunted  mask 
At  hide-and-seek  I  saw  my  query  play. 

"It  is  the  graven  symbol  of  your  ache," 

I  said,  " —  the  minted  meaning  of  your  blood ; 

And  he  who  works  not,  robs  you  when  he  buys ! 

You  are  the  vassal  of  a  thing  you  make  I" 

I  left  him  staring  hard  upon  the  mud, 

The  glimmer  of  a  portent  in  his  eyes. 


SONG  OF  THE  TURBINE  WHEEL 

HEARKEN  the  bluster  and  brag  of  the  Mill ! 

The  heart  of  the  Mill  am  I, 

Doomed  to  toil  in  the  dark  until 

The  springs  of  the  world  run  dry; 

With  never  a  ray  of  sun  to  cheer 

And  never  a  star  for  lamp ! 

It  cries  its  song  in  the  great  World's  ear  — 

I  toil  in  the  dark  and  damp. 

And  ever  the  storm-clouds  cast  their  showers 
And  the  brook  laughs  loud  in  the  sun, 
To  goad  me  on  through  the  dizzy  hours 
That  the  will  of  the  Mill  be  done ! 
And  that  is  why  I  groan  at  work ; 
For  deep  down  under  the  flood  I  lurk 
Where  the  icy  midnight  lingers ; 
While  tinkle,  tinkle  the  waters  play 
Through  starless  night  and  sunless  day  — 
All  with  their  crystal  fingers. 

Oh,  the  waters  have  such  a  rollicking  way 
And  they  taunt  me  in  my  pain ; 
"'Tis  thou  alone  art  sad,"  they  say, 


SONG  OF  THE  TURBINE  WHEEL      155 

"Thy  rusty  whine  is  vain; 

For  the  grass  is  green  and  the  skies  are  blue 

And  a  fisherman  whistled,  as  we  came  through, 

A  careless  merry  tune; 

And  a  bevy  of  boys  were  out  with  their  noise 

In  our  flood  made  warm  with  June !" 

And,  bound  as  I  am  where  the  darkness  lingers, 
I  half  forgive  their  careless  way, 
Such  soothing,  tinkling  tunes  they  play  — 
All  with  their  icy  fingers. 


THE  RED  WIND  COMES! 

Too  long  mere  words  have  thralled  us.     Let  us 

think ! 

Oh  ponder,  are  we  "free  and  equal"  yet  ? 
That  July  bombast,  writ  with  blood  for  ink, 
Is  blurred  with  floods  of  unavailing  sweat ! 

An  empty  sound  we  won  from  Royal  George ! 
Yea,  till  a  greater  fight  be  fought  and  won, 
A  sentimental  show  was  Valley  Forge, 
A  mawkish,  tawdry  farce  was  Lexington ! 

No  longer  blindfold  Justice  reigns ;   but  leers 
A  barefaced,  venal  strumpet  in  her  stead ! 
The  stolen  harvests  of  a  hundred  years 
Are  lighter  than  a  stolen  loaf  of  bread  ! 

O  pious  Nation,  holding  God  in  awe, 
Where  sacred  human  rights  are  duly  priced ! 
Where  men  are  beggared  in  the  name  of  Law, 
Where  alms  are  given  in  the  name  of  Christ ! 

The  Country  of  the  Free  ?  —  O  wretched  lie ! 
The  Country  of  the  Brave  ?  —  Yea,  let  it  be ! 
156 


THE  RED  WIND  COMES!  15? 

One  more  good  fight,  O  Brothers,  ere  we  die, 
And  this  shall  be  the  Country  of  the  Free ! 

What !    Are  we  cowards  ?    Are  we  doting  fools  ? 
Who  built  the  cities,  fructified  the  lands  ? 
We  make  and  use,  but  do  we  own  the  tools  ? 
Who  robbed  us  of  the  product  of  our  hands  ? 

A  tiger-hearted  Tyrant  crowned  with  Law, 
Whose  flesh  is  custom  and  whose  soul  is  greed  1 
Ubiquitous,  a  nothing  clothed  in  awe, 
We  sweat  for  him  and  bleed !  . 

Daft  Freedom  sings  the  glory  of  his  reign ; 
Religion  is  a  pander  of  his  lust : 
Surviving  tyrants,  he  eludes  the  vain, 
Tyrannicidal  thrust. 

Yea,  and  we  serve  this  Insult  to  our  God  ! 
Gnawing  our  crusts,  we  render  Caesar  toll ! 
We  labor  with  the  back  beneath  his  rod, 
His  shackles  on  the  soul ! 

He  is  a  System  —  wrought  for  human  hogs ! 
So  long  as  we  shall  hug  a  hoary  Lie, 
And  gulp  the  vocal  swill  of  demagogues, 
The  Fat  shall  rule  the  sty ! 

Behold  potential  plenty  for  us  all ! 
Behold  the  pauper  and  the  plutocrat ! 


158  THE  QUEST 

Behold  the  signs  prophetic  of  thy  fall, 
0  Dynast  of  the  Fat ! 

Lo,  even  now  the  haunting,  spectral  scrawl ! 
Lo,  even  now  the  beat  of  hidden  wings ! 
The  ghosts  of  millions  throng  thy  banquet-hall, 
O  guiltiest  and  last  of  all  the  kings ! 

Beware  the  Furies  stirring  in  the  gloom ! 

They    mutter    from    the    mines,    the    mills,    the 

slums ! 

No  lie  shall  stay  or  mitigate  thy  doom  — 
The  Red  Wind  comes  ! 


CRY  OF  THE  PEOPLE 

TREMBLE  before  thy  chattels, 
Lords  of  the  scheme  of  things  ! 
Fighters  of  all  earth's  battles, 
Ours  is  the  might  of  kings  ! 
Guided  by  seers  and  sages, 
The  world's  heart-beat  for  a  drum, 
Snapping  the  chains  of  ages, 
Out  of  the  night  we  come  ! 

Lend  us  no  ear  that  pities ! 
Offer  no  almoner's  hand  ! 
Alms  for  the  builders  of  cities  ! 
When  will  you  understand  ? 
Down  with  your  pride  of  birth 
And  your  golden  gods  of  trade  ! 
A  man  is  worth  to  his  mother,  Earth, 
All  that  a  man  has  made ! 

We  are  the  workers  and  makers ! 
We  are  no  longer  dumb  ! 
Tremble,  O  Shirkers  and  Takers ! 
Sweeping  the  earth  —  we  come  ! 


160  THE  QUEST 

Ranked  in  the  world-wide  dawn, 
Marching  into  the  day ! 
The  night  is  gone  and  the  sword  is  drawn 
And  the  scabbard  is  thrown  away  ! 


O  LYRIC  MASTER! 

i 

OUT  of  thy  pregnant  silence,  brooding  and  latent 

so  long, 
Burst  on  the  world,  O  Master,  sing  us  the  great 

man-song ! 

Have  we  not  piled  up  cities,  gutted  the  iron  hills, 
Schooled    with    our    dream    the    lightning    and 

steam,  giving  them  thoughts  and  wills  ? 
Have  we  not  laughed   at  distance,  belting  the 

earth  with  rails  ? 

We  are  no  herd  of  weaklings.     Lo,  we  are  mas 
terful  males ! 
We  are  the  poets  of  matter.     Latent  in  steel  and 

stone, 
Latent  in  engines  and  cities  and  ships,  see  how 

our  songs  have  grown ! 
Long  have  we  hammered  and  chiselled,  hewn  and 

hoisted,  until 
Lo,  'neath  the  wondering  noon  of  the  world,  the 

visible  Epic  of  Will ! 
Breathless  we  halt  in  our  labor;   shout  us  a  song 

to  cheer; 
Something  that's  swift  as  a  sabre,  keen  for  the 

mark  as  a  spear; 

M  161 


162  THE  QUEST 

Full  of  the  echoes  of  battle  —  souls  crying  up 

from  the  dust. 
Hungry  we  cried  to  our  singers  —  our  singers 

have  flung  us  a  crust ! 
Choked  with  the  smoke  of  the  battle,  staggering, 

weary  with  blows, 
We  cried  for  a  flagon  of  music  —  they  gave  us 

the  dew  of  a  rose ! 
Gewgaw    goblets    they    gave    us,    jewelled    and 

crystalline, 
But  filled  with  the  tears  of  a  weakling.     Better 

a  gourd  —  and  wine  ! 
O  immanent  Lyric  Master,  thou  who  hast   felt 

us  build, 
Moulding  the  mud  with  our  sweat  and  blood  into 

a  thing  we  willed  ; 
Soon  shall  thy  brooding  be  over,  the  dream  shall 

be  ripened  —  and  then, 
Thunderous  out  of  thy  silence,  hurl  us  the  Song 

of  Men ! 


KATHARSIS 

(1914) 
I 

WHO  pray  for  calm,  abhorring  flood  and  fire, 
Would  shun  the  purging  and  espouse  the  blight. 
Lo,  in  the  marshland  where  the  tempest's  might 
Has  raged  not,  how  life's  meaner  forms  aspire ! 
How  breeds  and  skitters  in  the  fetid  mire 
Spawn  reminiscent  of  the  primal  light ! 
What  saturnalias  of  the  parasite 
Where  corpse-lights  ape  the  elemental  fire ! 

Disaster,  riding  on  a  thunder-smoke, 
Serpents  of  flame  upon  his  forehead  set, 
Hurls  the  black  legions  of  cyclonic  strife ! 
We  trace  his  progress  by  the  shattered  oak, 
Bewail  the  wasted  centuries  —  and  yet, 
The  land  shall  quicken  to  a  cleaner  life. 

II 

They  hasten  to  the  ancient  bath  again, 
And  shall  emerge  unto  a  saner  peace. 
163 


164  THE  QUEST 

Lo,  how  they  made  a  fetich  of  caprice, 

And  worshipped  with  aberrant  brush  and  pen ! 

What  false  dawns  summoned  by  the  crowing  hen ! 

How  toiled  the  lean  to  batten  the  obese ! 

What  straying  from  the  sanity  of  Greece 

While  yet  her  seers  and  bards  were  fighting-men ! 

A  canting  generation,  smug  in  greed, 
With  neurasthenic  shudders,  suavely  wroth, 
Bemoans  the  ruin  of  Icarian  wings  ! 
Lo,  latent  in  its  luxury,  the  Mede ; 
Potential  in  bland  cruelties,  the  Goth  — 
Stern  teachers  of  the  fundamental  things ! 


\J 


THE  FARMER'S  THANKSGIVING 


NOT  ours  to  marshal,  rank  on  rank, 

The  might  a  Kaiser  wields  ; 
Not  ours  the  harvest  of  the  Frank 

On  rifle-pitted  fields  : 
But  we  have  fought,  and  we  have  won 

As  never  wins  the  sword  ; 
And  now  that  our  good  war  is  done, 

We  humbly  thank  the  Lord. 

Prepare  the  feast  and  let  us  sing 

Of  how  the  foe  we  slew  ; 
How  on  a  bleak  frontier  of  Spring 

We  ran  our  trenches  true  ; 
How,  trudging  through  the  harrow  smoke, 

Went  forth  our  army  leaders  ; 
And  how  the  golden  volleys  broke 

From  batteries  of  seeders. 

The  King  Most  High  was  our  ally. 
What  drilling  and  recruiting  ! 
165 


i66  THE  QUEST 

How  thronged  the  glades  and  hills  with  blades ! 

What  eagerness  for  shooting ! 
And  when,  midmost  the  June  campaign, 

Old  Drought  swooped  in  to  plunder, 
How  charged  the  lancers  of  the  rain ! 

What  cannonade  of  thunder ! 

Well  may  we  boast;   our  wheaten  host 

Outnumbered  all  the  Russians ; 
Our  plumed  corn  might  laugh  to  scorn 

The  Uhlans  of  the  Prussians ! 
They  seek  a  ghastly  triumph  now ; 

Our  victories  are  kinder. 
God  bless  the  good  old  twelve-inch  plow 

And  automatic  binder ! 

Lo,  where  like  stacked  triumphant  arms 

The  corn  shocks  dot  yon  rise ! 
Let  golden  bombs  on  all  the  farms 

Now  burst  in  pumpkin  pies  ! 
And  let  us  sing,  for  we  have  won 

As  never  wins  the  sword  ; 
And  now  that  our  good  fight  is  done, 

Be  praises  to  the  Lord  1 


THE  VOICE  OF  NEMESIS 

You  knew  me  of  old  and  feared  me, 
Dreading  my  face  revealed ; 
Temples  and  altars  you  reared  me, 
Wooed  me  with  shuddering  names ; 
Masking  your  fear  in  meekness, 
You  pseaned  the  doom  I  wield, 
Wrought  me  a  robe  of  your  weakness, 
A  crown  of  your  woven  shames. 

^ 

Image  of  all  earth's  error, 
Big  as  the  bulk  of  its  guilt, 
Lo,  I  darkled  with  terror, 
A  demon  of  spite  and  grudge; 
You  made  me  a  vessel  of  fury 
Brimmed  with  the  blood  you  spilt; 
With  devils  of  hell  for  jury, 
You  throned  me  a  pitiless  judge. 

For  ever  the  wage  of  sorrow 
Paid  for  the  lawless  deed ; 
Never  the  gray  to-morrow 
Paused  for  a  pious  price; 
167 


i68  THE  QUEST 

Never  by  prayer  and  psalter 
Perished  the  guilty  seed ; 
Vain  was  the  wail  at  the  altar,] 
The  smoke  of  the  sacrifice. 

I  come  like  a  crash  of  thunder ; 

I  come  as  a  slow-toothed  dread ; 

With  fire  and  sword  to  plunder 

Or  only  with  lust  and  sloth. 

By  star  or  sun  I  creep  or  run, 

And  lo,  my  will  was  sped 

By  the  might  of  the  Mede,  the  hate  of  the  Hun, 

The  bleak  northwind  of  the  Goth  ! 

Yet,  older  than  malice  and  cunning, 
The  love  and  the  hate  of  your  creed, 
I  smile  in  the  blossom  sunning, 
I  am  hurricane  lightning-shod  ! 
Revealed  in  a  myriad  dresses, 
I  am  master  or  slave  at  need. 
You  grope  for  my  face  with  your  guesses, 
And  kneel  to  your  guess  for  a  god. 

I  am  one  in  the  fall  of  the  pebble, 
The  call  of  the  sea  to  the  stream, 
The  wrath  of  the  starving  rebel, 
The  plunge  of  the  vernal  thaw : 


THE  VOICE  OF  NEMESIS  169 

The  yearning  of  things  to  be  level, 
The  stir  of  the  deed  in  the  dream ; 
I  am  these  —  I  am  angel  and  devil  — 
I  am  Law ! 


ECHO  SONG 

Lo,  a  wandering  echo  I, 
Flung  afar,  confused,  forlorn ; 
Yearning  with  a  broken  cry, 
Yet  of  mighty  music  born  ! 

Echo  from  a  Wonder-Horn 
That  sends  the  music  flying  far, 
Blaring  through  the  scarlet  morn, 
Tinkling  in  the  spangled  star! 

Where  in  all  the  songs  that  are 
May  the  echo  cease  to  be, 
Filling  out  a  wondrous  bar, 
Blending  with  a  melody  ? 

Like  a  ghost  there  lives  in  me, 
Frustrate  in  my  monotone, 
Something  chanted  by  a  Sea, 
Something  out  of  vastness  blown. 

Lost,  reiterant,  alone, 
I  grow  weary,  seeking  long, 
Out  of  master-music  blown, 
Homesick  for  the  Mother-Song. 

170 


ECHO  SONG  171 

Yet  —  what  though  the  way  be  long  ? 
Hark  the  music  flying  far ! 
Trumpets  from  the  scarlet  morn, 
Lyrics  from  the  evening  star ! 

Kin  to  all  the  songs  that  are, 
Of  a  mighty  singing  born, 
Sun  and  I  and  Sea  and  Star, 
Echoes  from  a  Wonder-Horn. 


FOUNTAIN  SONG 

I  AM  the  sprite  of  the  fountain, 
Sprung  from  the  gloom  am  I, 
Out  of  the  womb  of  the  Mountain, 
Big  with  the  kiss  of  the  Sky  ! 
I  am  the  Fugitive  Glory, 
Singing  the  strong  soul's  story. 
Twinkling,  tinkling,  glad  to  be 
Out  of  the  prison  of  Earth  set  free ; 
Dancing,  mad  with  the  cosmic  tune, 
Laughing  under  the  stars  and  moon  — 
Back  to  the  Ocean  soon  ! 

Back  to  the  Sky  and  back  to  the  Sea  — 
Oh  I  was  a  prisoner  long ! 
But  the  love  of  the  Vast  was  strong  in  me, 
I  fed  on  the  Dream  of  the  Strong. 
And  Oh  while  the  slow  gloom  chained  the  Deed, 
I  wrought  my  vision  of  silvery  speed  ! 
And  out  of  the  dread  hush  round  about, 
I  fashioned  a  gladsome  victor-shout ! 
Sister  of  Wave  and  Cloud  am  I, 
And  the  world  grows  green  as  I  pass  by  — 
Back  to  the  Sea  and  Sky ! 
172 


OUTWARD 

WHITHER  away,  O  Sailor,  say  ? 
Under  the  night,  under  the  day, 
Yearning  sail  and  flying  spray, 
Out  of  the  black  into  the  blue, 
Where  are  the  great  Winds  bearing  you  ? 

Never  port  shall  lift  for  me 
Into  the  sky,  out  of  the  sea  ! 
Into  the  blue  or  into  the  black, 
Onward,  outward,  never  back  ! 
Something  mighty  and  weird  and  dim 
Calls  me  under  the  ocean  rim  ! 

Sailor  under  sun  and  moon, 
'Tis  the  ocean's  fatal  rune. 
Under  yon  far  rim  of  sky 
Twice  ten  thousand  others  lie. 
Love  is  sweet  and  home  is  fair, 
And  your  mother  calls  you  there. 

Onward,  outward  I  must  go 
Where  the  mighty  currents  flow. 
Home  is  anywhere  for  me 
On  this  purple-tented  sea. 
173 


174  THE  QUEST 

Star  and  Wind  and  Sun  my  brothers. 
Ocean  one  of  many  mothers. 
Onward  under  sun  and  star 
Where  the  weird  adventures  are  I 
Never  port  shall  lift  for  me  — 
/  am  Wind  and  Sky  and  Sea  / 


THE  GHOSTLY  BROTHER 

BROTHER,  Brother,  calling  me 

Like  a  distant  surfy  sea, 

Like  a  wind  that  moans  and  grieves 

All  night  long  about  the  eaves ; 

Let  me  rest  a  little  span ; 

Long  I've  followed,  followed  fast ; 

Now  I  wish  to  be  a  man, 

Disconnected  from  the  Vast ! 

Let  me  stop  a  little  while, 

Feel  this  snug  world's  pulses  beat, 

Glory  in  a  baby's  smile, 

Hear  it  prattle  round  my  feet ; 

Eat  and  sleep  and  love  and  live, 

Thankful  ever  for  the  dawn ; 

Wanting  what  the  world  can  give  — 

With  the  cosmic  curtains  drawn ! 

Brother,  Brother,  break  the  gyves! 
Burst  the  prison,  Son  of  Power  I 
Product  oj  j or  gotten  lives, 
Seedling  of  the  final  flower  ! 
I7S 


THE  QUEST 

What  to  you  are  nights  and  days. 
Drifting  snow  or  rainy  flaw, 
Love  or  hate  or  blame  or  praise  — 
Heir  unto  the  Outer  Awe  ? 

I  am  breathless  from  the  flight 
Through  the  speed-cleft,  awful  night ! 
Panting,  let  me  rest  awhile 
In  this  pleasant  sether-isle. 
Here,  content  with  transient  things, 
How  the  witless  dweller  sings  ! 
Rears  his  brood  and  steers  his  plow, 
Nursing  at  the  breasts  of  Now. 
Here  the  meanest,  yea,  the  slave 
Claims  the  heirloom  of  a  grave ! 
Oh,  this  little  world  is  blest  — 
Brother,  Brother,  let  me  rest ! 

/  am  you  and  you  are  I! 
When  the  world  is  cherished  most, 
You  shall  hear  my  haunting  cry, 
See  me  rising  like  a  ghost. 
I  am  all  that  you  have  been, 
Are  not  now,  but  soon  shall  be  ! 
Thralled  awhile  by  dust  and  din  — 
Brother,  Brother,  follow  me  ! 

'Tis  a  lonesome,  endless  quest; 
I  am  weary ;   I  would  rest. 


THE  GHOSTLY  BROTHER  177 

Though  I  seek  to  fly  from  you, 
Like  a  shadow,  you  pursue. 
Do  I  love  ?     You  share  the  kiss, 
Leaving  only  half  the  bliss. 
Do  I  conquer  ?     You  are  there, 
Claiming  half  the  victor's  share. 
When  the  night-shades  fray  and  lift, 
'Tis  your  veiled  face  lights  the  rift. 
In  the  sighing  of  the  rain, 
Your  voice  goads  me  like  a  pain. 
Happy  in  a  narrow  trust, 
Let  me  serve  the  lesser  will 
One  brief  hour  —  and  then,  to  dust ! 
Oh,  the  dead  are  very  still ! 

Brother,  Brother,  follow  hence  ! 
Ours  the  wild,  unflagging  speed! 
Through  the  outer  walls  of  sense. 
Follow,  follow  where  I  lead  ! 
Love  and  hate  and  grief  and  fear  — 
9 Tis  the  geocentric  dream! 
Only  shadows  linger  here, 
Cast  by  the  eternal  Gleam  ! 
Follow,  follow,  follow  fast !  — 
Somewhere  out  of  Time  and  Place, 
You  shall  lift  the  veil  at  last, 
You  shall  look  upon  my  face; 

N 


178  THE  QUEST 

Look  upon  my  face  and  die, 
Solver  of  the  Mystery  ! 
I  am  you  and  you  are  I  — 
Brother,  Brother,  follow  me  ! 


WHEN  I  HAVE  GONE  WEIRD  WAYS 

WHEN  I  have  finished  with  this  episode, 
Left  the  hard  up-hill  road, 
And  gone  weird  ways  to  seek  another  load, 
O  Friend  regret  me  not,  nor  weep  for  me  — 
Child  of  Infinity ! 

Nor  dig  a  grave,  nor  rear  for  me  a  tomb, 
To  say  with  lying  writ :   "Here  in  the  gloom 
He  who  loved  bigness  takes  a  narrow  room, 
Content  to  pillow  here  his  weary  head  — 
For  he  is  dead." 

But  give  my  body  to  the  funeral  pyre, 
And  bid  the  laughing  fire, 
Eager  and  strong  and  swift  as  my  desire, 
Scatter  my  subtle  essence  into  Space  — 
Free  me  of  Time  and  Place. 

Sweep  up  the  bitter  ashes  from  the  hearth ! 
Fling  back  the  dust  I  borrowed  from  the  Earth 
Unto  the  chemic  broil  of  Death  and  Birth  — 
The  vast  Alembic  of  the  cryptic  Scheme, 
Warm  with  the  Master-Dream  ! 
179 


i8o  THE  QUEST 

And  thus,  O  little  House  that  sheltered  me, 
Dissolve  again  in  wind  and  rain,  to  be 
Part  of  the  cosmic  weird  Economy  : 
And  Oh,  how  oft  with  new  life  shalt  thou  lift 
Out  of  the  atom-drift ! 


ENVOI 

OH  seek  me  not  within  a  tomb ; 
Thou  shalt  not  find  me  in  the  clay ! 
I  pierce  a  little  wall  of  gloom 
To  mingle  with  the  Day ! 

I  brothered  with  the  things  that  pass, 
Poor  giddy  Joy  and  puckered  Grief; 
I  go  to  brother  with  the  Grass 
And  with  the  sunning  Leaf. 

Not  Death  can  sheathe  me  in  a  shroud ; 
A  joy-sword  whetted  keen  with  pain, 
I  join  the  armies  of  the  Cloud, 
The  Lightning  and  the  Rain. 

Oh  subtle  in  the  sap  athrill, 
Athletic  in  the  glad  uplift, 
A  portion  of  the  Cosmic  Will, 
I  pierce  the  planet-drift. 

My  God  and  I  shall  interknit 
As  rain  and  Ocean,  breath  and  Air; 
And  Oh,  the  luring  thought  of  it 
Is  prayer ! 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 
181 


E   following   pages   contain   advertisements   of 
books  by  the  same  author  or  on  kindred  subjects. 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

The  Song  of  Hugh  Glass 

BY  JOHN  G.  NEIHARDT 

Cloth,  ismo,  $1.25,  also  leather,  $r.6o 


For  the  first  time  the  essentially  epic  period  of  the  American  fur 
trade  west  of  the  Missouri  River  is  celebrated  in  poetry.  In  "  The 
Song  of  Hugh  Glass"  John  G.  Neihardt  deals  with  our  own  great 
Northwest.  His  book  goes  a  long  way  to  disprove  the  statement 
that  is  sometimes  made  that  America  has  little  or  no  national  poetry 
because  it  lacks  heroic  traditions  upon  which  to  build.  Mr. 
Neihardt's  theme  is  seen  to  be  one  not  incomparable  in  possibilities 
with  those  of  the  great  epics  of  literature.  Its  strictly  national  char 
acter  and  its  newness  in  poetry  will  commend  the  volume  to  those 
who  are  following  the  renaissance  of  verse  in  this  country. 

"  Of  far  more  convincing  interest  than  any  narrative  Masefield 
has  told,  with  the  possible  exception  of  '  Dauber,'  far  more  human, 
real,  and  powerful  than  any  Noyes  has  yet  exhibited.  It  is  a  big, 
sweeping  thing,  blazing  a  pathway  across  the  frontiers  of  our 
national  life."  —  Boston  Transcript. 

"  It  is  worthy  and  most  promising  American  work,  and  should 
encourage  other  poets  in  the  same  field."—  The  Bellman. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

Publishers  64-66  Fifth  Avenue  New  York 


NEW  MACMILLAN  POETRY 


The  Great  Valley 


BY  EDGAR  LEE  MASTERS 

Author  of  "  Spoon  River  Anthology." 

This  book  by  the  author  of  "  Spoon  River  Anthology  "  represents 
Mr.  Masters's  very  latest  work,  and  while  it  employs  the  style  and 
method  of  its  now  famous  predecessor  it  marks  an  advance  over 
that  both  in  treatment  and  thought.  Here  Mr.  Masters  is  interpret 
ing  the  country  and  the  age.  Many  problems  are  touched  upon 
with  typical  Masters  incisiveness.  Many  characters  are  introduced, 
each  set  off"  with  that  penetrative  insight  into  human  nature  that  so 
distinguished  the  Anthology.  The  result  is  an  epic  of  American  life, 
a  worthy  successor  to  Mr.  Masters's  first  volume. 


Spoon  River  Anthology 

BY  EDGAR  LEE   MASTERS 

New  edition  with  new  poems.    With  illustrations  and 
decorations  by  OLIVER  HERFORD 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  books  of  many  a  year  —  this  is  the 
consensus  of  opinion  on  Mr.  Masters's  Anthology.  Originality  of 
idea  distinguished  its  construction ;  skill  in  the  handling  of  words 
and  lines  marked  the  working  out  of  this  idea,  while  every  individual 
poem  was  notable  for  the  embodiment  in  it  of  great  human  under 
standing  and  sympathy.  Mr.  Masters's  text  is  now  to  appear  in  a 
more  elaborate  dress  with  illustrations  by  Oliver  Herford.  The 
artist  has  not  only  made  a  beautiful  book  —  he  has  given  a  new 
significance  to  many  of  the  poems.  He  has  succeeded  in  really 
interpreting  Masters's  work. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

Publishers  64-66  Fifth  Avenue  New  York 


NEW  MACMILLAN  POETRY 


Fruit  Gathering 


BY  RABINDRANATH  TAGORE 

Author  of"  Sadhana,"  "  The  King  of  the  Dark  Chamber,"  etc. 

Perhaps  of  all  of  Tagore's  poetry  the  most  popular  volume  is 
"  Gitanjali."  It  was  on  this  work  that  he  was  awarded  the  Nobel 
Prize  in  Literature.  These  facts  lend  special  interest  to  the  an 
nouncement  of  this  book,  which  is  a  sequel  to  that  collection  of 
religious  "  Song  Offerings."  Since  the  issue  of  his  first  book,  some 
four  years  ago,  Tagore  has  rapidly  grown  in  popularity  in  this  coun 
try,  until  now  he  must  be  counted  among  the  most  widely  read  of 
modern  poets.  Another  volume  of  the  merit,  the  originality,  the 
fine  spiritual  feeling  of  "  Gitanjali  "  would  even  further  endear  him 
to  his  thousands  of  American  admirers. 


Californians 

BY  ROBINSON  JEFFERS 

California  is  now  to  have  its  part  in  the  poetry  revival.  Robinson 
Jeffers  is  a  new  poet,  a  man  whose  name  is  as  yet  unknown  but 
whose  work  is  of  such  outstanding  character  that  once  it  is  read  he 
is  sure  of  acceptance  by  those  who  have  admired  the  writings  of 
such  men  as  John  G.  Neihardt,  Edgar  Lee  Masters,  Edwin  Arling 
ton  Robinson,  and  Thomas  Walsh.  Virtually  all  of  the  poems  in 
this  first  collection  have  their  setting  in  California,  most  of  them  in 
the  Monterey  peninsula,  and  they  realize  the  scenery  of  the  great 
State  with  vividness  and  richness  of  detail.  The  author's  main 
source  of  inspiration  has  been  the  varying  aspects  of  nature. 


THE   MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers  64-66  Fifth  Avenue  New  York 


NEW  MACMILLAN  POETRY 


The  New  Poetry.     An  Anthology 

EDITED  BY  HARRIET  MONROE  AND  ALICE 
CORBIN   HENDERSON,  Editors  of  Poetry 


Probably  few  people  are  following  as  closely  the  poetry  of  to-day 
as  are  the  editors  of  the  Poetry  Magazine  of  Chicago.  They  are 
eminently  fitted,  therefore,  to  prepare  such  a  volume  as  this,  which 
is  intended  to  represent  the  work  that  is  being  done  by  the  leading 
poets  of  the  land.  Here,  between  the  covers  of  one  book,  are 
brought  together  poems  by  a  great  many  different  writers,  all  of 
whom  may  be  said  to  be  responsible  in  a  measure  for  the  revival  of 
interest  in  poetry  in  this  country.  The  volume  is  unusual,  not  only 
in  the  number  of  names  which  it  contains,  but  in  the  splendid  in 
sight  which  it  gives  into  a  literature  which  seems  to  be  coming  once 
more  into  its  own. 


Poems  of  the  Great  War 

BY  J.  W.   CUNLIFFE 

Here  are  brought  together  under  the  editorship  of  Dr.  Cunliffe 
some  of  the  more  notable  poems  which  have  dealt  with  the  great 
war.  Among  the  writers  represented  are  Rupert  Brooke,  John 
Masefield,  Lincoln  Colcord,  William  Benet,  Wilfrid  Wilson  Gibson, 
Hermann  Hagedorn,  Alfred  Noyes,  Rabindranath  Tagore,  Walter 
De  La  Mare,  Vachel  Lindsay  and  Owen  Seaman. 


THE   MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers  64-66  Fifth  Avenue  New  York 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

AN     INITIAL    FINE     OF     25     CENTS 

WILL  BE   ASSESSED    FOR    FAILURE  TO   RETURN 
THIS   BOOK  ON   THE  DATE  DUE.      THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  5O  CENTS  ON  THE  FOUR! 
DAY     AND     TO     $1.OO     ON     THE    SEVENTH     DAY 
OVERDUE. 


JAN  30  1933 
JAN  31  1933 


D  LD 


LD  2. 


JAN    31   1 


35799 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


